Hi, i recently purchased a logitech z5500 Digital surround sound system, this system has optical and coax inputs on it, to get dolby digital 5.1 and DTS etc.. i have to use either coax or optical, and my motherboard does not have either of them, so i was thinking of getting a new sound card, i do quite alot of gaming, and i listin to lots and lots and lots of music, and watch movies on my pc, now at the moment i am stuck between 2 cards, these are the HDA Digital X-Plosion 7.1 DTS Connect and the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS Edition, the creative card comes with a front panel, but appart from that, the HDA card seems ot have alot better fetures, i aint sure as the price of the Creative card is alot higher so maybe its better? and it has 64mb of xram. I need help to decide, which one do you think is better, is creative way over rated?
X-RAM provides virtually no gains whatsoever. The gains it may provide are typically within a margin of error and, even there are minimal. X-RAM is a joke. Much of the price of the X-Fi Fatal1ty is the Fatal1ty branding, and quite honestly, who cares? Buy the part because of what it has, not because of some branding. If you're going for gaming, Creative is the main player there, but don't think you have to get Creative only. Additionally, they've been having some problems on nForce based systems due to latency issues with the PCI bus (and they have in the past). It's not that Creative is bad, but they really don't have a lot of major competition in gaming. They are a major player, but that doesn't mean they're the best. The last time I used them, they had pretty bloated software. If Creative made an OS, it'd be more bloated than Windows. Creative, overall is not the best, and overpriced. However, they've been around a long time and put out fairly decent products over the years. Still, they're not the best, and if you want to use their products outside of Windows, especially the X-Fi, good luck.
Thanks, i have been looking at the X-FI Fatal1ty for quite a while, if i do get a creative card then thats the one because i want coax, optical and all the other stuff, i suppose i will have to read up on the reviews. Do you know anything on the HDA X-Plosion card?, does it have any disadvantages in gaming, and does it have anything better than the X-FI?, i would like to go for the X-Plosion, but i dont know if i am doing the right thing there, maybe spending that extra £60 or so on the X-FI is worth it, i aint sure, there is alot of stuff i could get for £60 like a new cooler, new hard drive, new ram etc.. and i dont want to be wasting it on somthing that may not be worth its money, the money i am using to buy the sound card is what i was previously going to use to buy an x1900xt, but i decided to wait untill direct x 10 now, it will proberbly be a smart move and somthing i wont regret. Before i bought the Z5500 speaker system form logitech, i was not botherd about sound card, i thought whats the point of buying a PCi sound card when there is a perfectly good one in the motherboard, then i discoverd Dolby Digital, DTS 96/24, THX etc.. for computers and then with the new speaker system i started hearing sound of a lower quality, i found it was that the speakers are so clear, i can hear all the crap in a 128kbps mp3 and also found that i couldent get the best out of these speakers withought a decent sound card, If the X-Plosion sound card is just as good as the X-FI, i wont even look at the X-FI again, i really could choose to avoid £145, but if its what it takes ot get DTS and Dobly Digital etc.. then i am prepaird to spend that, but £88 would be more suited if the X-Plosion aint not far behind an X-FI.
Unless you cannot live without EAX4/5.0, which you may or may not notice, from what I've read, the HDA is a very nice card. Also, Creative has had some problems with the X-Fi and nForce 4-based motherboards. Some of it's the configuration of the hardware, but we've seen this shit before from Creative. They're not the worst company, but they're not the first company I'd jump on with sound cards. Ultimately, if you can, you're best bet would be listen to each card. However, from personal experience with past Creative sound cards, they're overpriced compared to the competition and have bloated software. They're not terrible cards, but for the money you pay, you should get a better support package all around.
Anyway, i went and got the X-FI Fatal1ty, with front i/o unit, control and free headphones that could be worth £30, i payed £153.
