Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum by Creative Labs
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Digital camera reviews of Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
Digital camera Review: I'm a recording engineer
Summary: 5 Stars
I have had the X-Fi Platinum for about one month. I upgraded from Soundblaster 5.1, a big upgrade. I have an Asus Motherboard, AMD processor and NVidia video and have not had any problems at all. I got the card to record vinyl to CD. I have about 500 albums. The advantage of the connections straight from the amp to the card were the selling point.
I have recorded some albums over 30 years old and they sound fine. The recording software that came with the card works just fine from simple record to three levels of effects. I have put recordings from the records on my mp3 and burned cd's. Better sound than a casette tape and I've just scratched the surface with the software features.
I have a great improvement in overall sound and there are many uses for the features on the card and the software applications that come with it. All I need is more knowledge on how to use all of the features. The card is expensive but worth it, particularly if you have a specific use for it. Take the plunge and enjoy the best sound available, you deserve it.
Digital camera Review: Xrteme X-Fi hi-fi!!
Summary: 4 Stars
First off, not a perfect product far from infact, takes a bit of tinkering to work right and the instructions arn't really clear. I had the Audigy 2 ZS before this sound card and it was a simple install card, install drivers and your good to go; huge improvement over the onboard AC97. This was the first problem, the fact that I had drivers on my system from a previous Sound Blaster card, had to sweep them from my system. my next problem was that the X-Fi drivers that come with the card are beta at best and have conflicts with motherboard chipsets and video cards, but nothing that updates from there website won't fix (the original drivers must be installed first). Now why would I give a sound card that ships with sub par drivers a 4 out of 5, the sound is incredible. If the Audigy was step up from the onboard, then the X-Fi is a giant leap. Great for games and movies!Digital camera Review: Great Sound but Buyer Beware
Summary: 3 Stars
I loved the sound I got from this card, but unfortunately it did not play nice with my ASUS ALN8 chipset and AMD processing. I would get a BSOD at least once - sometimes twice a day - caused by the Creative drivers. After 30 days i returned the product. I would suggest visiting Support Forums regarding Creative drivers with AMD processing and/or ASUS ALN8 chipset. Creative Support is aware of this issue but admitted there is no quick fix in sight. If they create a fix I would gladly re-purchase.Digital camera Review: Do not buy this card if you have NVidia chipset
Summary: 1 Stars
Pros: Perfect sound, solved resampling issues
Cons: famous popping/crackling noises makes it useless for gaming, especially in BF2 (which use OpenAL by Creative). Crystallizer is useless.
This card has the most advanced sound processor which does not work on at least 20% of high end systems, not only NVidia NForce 4 chipset, but also with other AMD and Intel CPU motherboards: see Google for "X-Fi popping/crackling". Even if you do not have in game crackling immediately, you have a good chance to get it after any memory or HD upgrade or driver configuration change. For long time Creative denied existence of this problem. Eventually it was recognized (see official CL forums) and a new driver (since November 2005!) was promised at the end of May 2006, but beta version published 05/30/06 did not solve my problem. In the case of old audigy 2 zs the problem was solved with unofficial "hacked" drivers. I suspect that X-Fi crackling is an architecture design flow, which cannot be completely solved at software level, because PCI bus cannot provide sufficient memory access for the "the fastest sound processor" simultaneously with high end graphic card, HD controller, and other devices.
Bottom end: I have to stop playing games, or go back to low quality integrated sound. Do not take risk, wait for working drivers, or buy a working card from different manufacturer. With fixed drivers I would give this card 4 or 5 stars.
UPDATE 06/12/2006
I found that many desktop motherboards (MB) have really slow south bridge (south bridge is connecting PCI, USB, Firewire, and HD to CPU directly or through north bridge), especially MBs with NVidia chipsets (and even with some Intel MBs). New beta X-Fi driver and MB BIOS updates solved the problem in many cases (but not for my MB Asrock K8NF4G-SATA2, nVidia 6100 / 410 MCP chipset), but situation is still marginal and X-Fi might go unstable again. I contact CL customer service, they did not solved the problem, but pointed out that ATI chipsets (Athlon 64, ATI 200 or 3200) have no problems with X-Fi. I decided not to return SB to seller, but save it for a new computer with ATI based MB. I guess that majority of workstation class MBs with upscale south bridge and PCI-X (even NVidia based) also should be fine with X-Fi. The trouble is that majority of X-Fi buyers have generic NVidia based MBs like me. So I can give X-Fi two stars instead of 1 (but I cannot change the rating), and even more stars if it will work well in my new computer of after new driver release (if it will work).
Digital camera Review: Great Deal
Summary: 5 Stars
Hardware was A breeze to install.took about 20 minuets including the bay.Same for the software, no problems.Sound Quality is much improved over my old live card.In battlefield 2 game play is much improved on my 2.4/radeon 9700 pro/512.Before I would freeze framing during start in rooms, and during game play in intense situations.Now with the X-Fi I have none of that, and the game runs much smoother overall. Dvd movies sound much improved. Music is also much improved. The only problem Ive had burning expanded mp3's is 1 didnt convert well out of 5 so far. Software interface is also A bit lack luster, but is functional. Card is worth the price, hopefully upgrades will improve interface.