Is the X-fi Music worth it?

[Heyyou27]

Umm, it can process 40,000 MIPS. This means that as games take advantage of the newer features (including XRAM) the CPU usage and FPS hit will remain quite low. Games that are said to be raking advantage are F.E.A.R, BF2, Unreal3, Unreal Tournament 2007 and MANY MANY more (pretty much all EA titles).

Only Battlefield2 is an EA title. :roll:
Let's also consider that the new Lord of the Rings game is EA's first shader model 3.0 title.

 

[astrallite]

I don't think astrallite knows what he's talking about. He's quite funny, almost acting like he works for a competitor..lol. (He might actually work for one) or he's some sort of VIA, Realtek etc fanboy.

Either way, the 10,000 MIPS processing number is a number geared towards gamers. astralite if you don't know how a sound card that can process more information quicker benefits a gamer then I suggest you go
post on kiddieland.com. Nice place for newbs.

More processing power, the more features you can turn on and the higher the sound quality you can use as a sample in games (24bit sound like BF2) without a large performance hit (since it's all processed on the fly, by the X-Fi APU).

That's what 10,000MIPS means, it means you can get better sounding audio to run in games with all of teh bells and whitles turned on without hindering performance too much.

As far as the sound Quality, the X-Fi has shown, time after time, site after site, test after test.. that it is not only the best consumer level sound card.. but the best sound card period (even over highend audiophile cards currently available on the market). It's one Achilles heal is drivers. (but this is from a past experience viewpoint). I have yet to have any driver related issues with my X-Fi but that's not to say I won't encounter any.

Quit the fanboy crap, and the mis-information.. thank you.

Elmo, I'm glad you've resorted to name calling, after I've provided factual evidence to your own misinformation over and over again. I'm not going to lower myself to name calling because it's bad etiquitte, and when I'm wrong, I accept it, rather than parroting insults are people.

If you think I have a problem with the X-Fi, or Creative, you are wrong, or just changing the subject. Several times on this thread you brought up misidentified or misinformed concepts about Creative features like the Crystalizer, EAX, resampling, and the breakdown of MIPs. I don't have a problem with you (as much as you might believe otherwise from my quiped responses), or with what you purchase. I am trying to help *you* clear up misidenitifcation of concepts, because other people read this thread, hoping to learn from "old hands" who've been hobby gaming for years, and learning misinformation is no gain for anyone. If that salts your pride, tell me not to patronize you or something. But to change the subject to say I am working for the opposition, or I dislike Creative or the X-Fi, is just not true. I admit, at this time the product is *not for me,* however.

Here is the breakout of the "MIPs" as provided by Creative:

Function........MIPS....Percentage
SRC:............7310....70.7%
Filter:...........200.......1.9%
Mixer:...........1210.....11.7%
Tank:............440......4.3%
DSP:.............1180.....11.4%

Do you know what SRC is? Here's a clue: "Sample rate conversion."

 

[avatar3k]

you need to list your speakers...

 

[blader8901]

It really depends on what you want to do, if you just want to listen to awesome music and you have a good pair of speakers, i would suggest a real set of fishers or somthing not any crapy PC speakers(its pretty easy to hook your stereo up to the computer if you cant do this then idk what to tell you), THEN i would go with the X-Fi

As of now i would not buy anything except the extream music version. thing is its a really great card but right now its a very small amount of people who will actualy use it if your recording great if you love music and youve got nice speakers great, get the extream music.

As far as gamers go, id sit back on your audidgy 2 for another year or so.
The way i look at it game developers have got alot of new things to get used to right now is an EXTREAMLY evolving time for developing a game youve got dual core processors, Ageia's physics API's are coming out, next generation consoles and now creative has released new API's. thats a hard hit, and directX10 is right down the road, oh yeah and managed direct X and C#.

SO as far as a gamer goes i would wait it out for the next generation of X-Fi cards with more X-Ram and pci express support

 

[madden95]

I have to say thank you to everyone for posting on this topic as I have found it to be very helpful reading it. It always helps to get the opinions of the people that live with the product day in and day out.

 

[NaomiHIkaru]

Ok I'm going on an all out rant here (sorry guys) but I just have to complain about this thing.

I recently bought an Audigy X-fi platinum since it was on sale and now i'm not so sure about it after reading this thread and my experiences so far.

For one it seemed a good deal at the time X-fi hype and stuff that i fell for... so i bought it thinking it would be a good investment...WRONG

I'm am absolutly hating this thing right now. The remote is crap and its IR so it only works so far from where my computer sits in the room. I tried everything to get it to work with winamp and I just got fed up with all this crap and runarounds and I wasn't getting anywhere.

Another thing is i have this dang ribbon cable in the middle of my case now that restricts airflow(i haven't exactly organized it) but still i don't think i can do much with it at this point in time.

As for the panel i have one comment WTF!!! who is going to attatch everything to the front of their comp other than the headphones? (at least for the average consumer not some audio editing guru even though there are better cards)

Right now I am just fed up with it and here is my advice to people...get an audigy 2zs (which is about the same right?) and use the money saved to buy a decent RF remote or IR remote, your preference, and if you want optical out go with a different card, there are so good options out there besides the audigy's

Hope you have better finding then me, oh an by the way i made this decision after like having it for 2days, so i'm going to return it.