Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI

[hitchface]

It's time for another review, now that the new Christmas toys have been installed and played with.

Today's sacrifice is the Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio sound card. The Internet is sorely lacking in solid reviews for this product save what you might find on Newegg or a similar e-tailer, so hopefully this will answer some questions that people have. The usual categorical analysis will be my method of review.

Looks:

Normally, I wouldn't care about this aspect of an internal part, but since I have a window on my case, as some of you do, I'll describe it. It is small, blue, and has no lights. Since the chip on it generates next to no real heat, there is no cooling device attached except for a cool X-Fi sticker.

Features:

Were this to be an audiophile-geared card, I'd go really in-depth and use some audio benchmarking tools to show the intricacies of what this card does. Since it isn't, I will use my subjective ear to (as objectively as possible) provide you with an idea of what it is capable of. This is a baseline card. It is the cheapest in price and features of the whole X-Fi line, so I walked into this expecting only basic goodies. However, I was upgrading from AC'97 onboard audio, so my hopes were high.

Creative includes software with their cards other than the drivers. The control panel they gave me included one mode, which was "Entertainment Mode". Other cards will have "Gaming Mode" as well as "Audio Creation Mode". So, judging by the fact that I am missing the last two, I can instantly know that this card wasn't designed for audio creation or gaming. In fact, a lot of Newegg reviewers were claiming that the card caused crackling, hissing and popping in their games, as well as drastic reductions in frame rates. I'll touch on all of that in the next category.

Entertainment Mode gave me all kinds of fun things to play with. Aside from a small mixer and an adjustable EQ band, I had CMSS-3D (upmixing utility), Crystallizer (enhances percussive sounds), EAX effects (environmental sound emulator) and a speaker/headphone configuration/test menu. EAX effects, CMSS-3D and Crystallizer allow you to shape your sound to how you want it. CMSS-3D also has a headphone mode, allowing simulated 5.1 surround sound through headphones. It wasn't quite the same thing, but I was quite impressed nonetheless.

Sound:

I tested this card in music, movies and games on a set of Creative Inspire T6100 5.2 speakers.

Game Test: Call of Duty 4 was the testbed here. I really wanted to see if this device was actually causing any of the aforementioned noises. It didn't make any sense to me that this would be the case, so I went and found out for myself. To my great relief, there were no such noises to be heard, even with maximum sound quality selected from Creative's control panel. That issue aside, the subtleties in sound were key here. I didn't notice any new sounds, but more of the background ambiance was reworked. Distant gunshots were still muffled, but had a distinct crack to them. People's voices had much more human quality to them, and worked very well with the environment which they were in. 3-D positioning was also admirably done. It definitely made a better player out of me to be able to hear precisely where my enemies were. Drops in frame rates were non-existent.

Music Test: The particular songs I used were Worlds Apart by Jars of Clay, Come and Listen by David Crowder, and once again, Eruption from Van Halen. All of the songs were run with the Crystallizer at 60%, CMSS-3D activated to upmix all stereo music to 5.1 surround, no EAX effects and a flat EQ. To keep it brief, I'll say that in all three songs, each voice was separated into its own musical space. Generally, you listen to a song and can pick out the guitar, bass, lead and maybe backup vocalist, and thats it. They all tend to crowd each other and blend in too much, making a song sound 'muddy' and relatively unclear. Instead, each part was quite crisp and clearly audible, to the point where new voices were introduced. Now, instead of hearing the guitar, you hear guitars one, two and three, as well as an additional vocalist singing soft harmony. The best way to put it is this: You are there, at the concert. Live music was very convincing under these settings.

Movie Test: I re-tested Stealth for this review for one reason. In my review of these speakers, I complained that the 3-D positioning wasn't all that convincing in the movie. I wanted to see if this card would rectify that, and it did. Jets actually flew past me. Another element that impressed me was voices, once again. For the whole opening sequence of the movie, the pilots are talking in helmets with a glass shield which covers the whole face. Here, they sounded like they were talking into a glass panel, which was awesome. To make it even better, the voices resumed their natural sound during the debrief after the opening scene. These subtle differences can make a movie for me, so I was glad to see such a pronounced increase in sound quality. This effect gave me a sort of excited-yet-claustrophobic feeling during all of the plane-related sequences. Very cool.

Notes and Conclusion:

Remember that this isn't a pro-audio card. It wasn't designed for music creation, which is especially evident when you realize there are no arrangements made for audio interfacing included. This is a cheap solution, but while I stress that, I also want to say that it is quite well suited for music listening, movies and games. It is a very easy to use device that will boost your audio quality, even without enhancers enabled. If you've never heard audio out of a dedicated sound card, it will be difficult to imagine how it could actually get better. Go to a concert or live performance and compare what you hear to what comes out of your computer speakers. Now you know what a dedicated sound card can do.

IMPORTANT note on enhancements: It is incredibly easy to 'over-effect' your sound and make it feel completely unnatural and synthetic. I liken it to the SRS WOW Effect built into Windows Media Player. If you crank all of the effects too high, you'll ruin the sound, so play with it a little to get what you want.

So do I recommend the Xtreme Audio? That depends. It is really easy to implement and upgrade your sound, but it also lacks the features that other cards do. It isn't much more expensive to spring for a better package, so if you are worried that the limited software will cripple you somehow, not all is lost. All in all, this is a well rounded product for not too much money. I'll give it a big thumbs up.

[pam123]

Nice review!
I'll put the card on my list for customers who have "a little room" in their budgets.

[hitchface]

I had a feeling I was missing something. Questions are by all means welcome.

[pam123]

Originally Posted by hitchface I had a feeling I was missing something. Questions are by all means welcome.

Not really.

The hitch is that ordinary people don't do their shopping at newegg or by checking out PCMech ( We're working on that but we're still a self-selected bunch. ).

Many would enjoy better sound but can make do with "good enough" as the budget dictates; until someone shows them an affordable alternative.
That's when the questions start.

You just helped kick off the discussion.

[hitchface]

Well, I got my card for 70 dollars US, which is on the higher end of the typical range. Newegg has it for 63 right now. For 70 bucks, this audio experience is well worth the money. There is also a PCIe version to suggest. Same general price, but the bus update has its advantages.

If your customers care about their music or movies in even a small way, they won't regret this.

On a side note, I just can't figure out what these people are saying about bad noise distortion in games...I'm just not experiencing that at all.

[glc]

They are probably running low power systems - even a sound card eats some resources.

[hitchface]

Yeah, my only response was something like "PEBCAC", if it wasn't drivers or a bad card.

EDIT: I just realized that I said I had a "5.2" speaker system in my review...any mods wanna edit that? As much as I want 2 subs, I think it is over the top.

[john ranger]

Thanks for that