Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum by Creative
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Digital camera reviews of Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum
Digital camera Review: WOW
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this card because my old SB Live 5.1 card wasnt working with my new 5.1 speakers (center speaker didnt work in games/mp3's) so it just gave me a reason to get it. I love to play games and my g/f loves to play music on my computer. First off let me tell you BF2 is amazing! If you play BF2 get this card ASAP, the first time i shot a sniper rifle I was just shocked! The quality was so nice and it was so crisp, i shot at nothing 10-15 times just to hear the sound... It was amazing, on top of that bf2 ran smoother! Even on old games like counter-strike the upgrade was noticable. Now with music my g/f loves it too, and shes not a computer person. She loves to play with the different settings and LOVES the remote w/the platinum version. It's a little on the expencive side, but it is more than worth it, I LOVE 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: You may won't to look elsewhere
Summary: 3 Stars
I have had my X-Fi sound card for several years. It performed well until I begin to develop problems with it. I can tell you this for sure. If you think you can or will get support from Creative, you'd be wrong. There is no number to call. Your "support" is done via e-mail, with no one to talk to. I have had no luck with Sound Blaster products at all. The drivers for Vista are problematic and unless you are computer technically proficient (by that I mean an expert because I am fairly proficient)you will be on your own. The product worked well under XP but there have been nothing but problems with the Vista. I don't have Windows 7 yet so I don't know if the driver problems are corrected. The sound and functionality were great for a while, but I don't like paying this much for a sound card that only lasted about a year and a half.Digital camera Review: build and sound quality
Summary: 5 Stars
build and sound quality is excellent and easy to setupDigital camera Review: calling out for a Linux driver
Summary: 5 Stars
Well I am very fastidious on sound, I want good sound even on a PC that's why I've always bought sound cards from Creative Labs.
And I respect Creative's hard work on the new architecture for the processor on its X-Fi product line that's why I bought this product even with the awareness of that it is Linux-challenged. I thought, they've got great engineers to work out the highly modularized ring architecture on the audio processor, there is a reason to believe that they are a _tech_ company, there is a reason to believe that they care about geeks, there is a reason to believe that there is a voice for geeks in this company, there is a reason to believe the Linux driver for X-Fi line is not just a dream. So I bought this card in Sep. 2006, and installed a Windows partition in my Linux workstation just in order to be able to appreciate the hard work of Creative's engineers' for the X-Fi processor. I waited patiently till year 2007. However the page claiming X-Fi's road map for the Linux driver doesn't exist anymore on Creative's domain.
I have the feeling that all the Linux users are simply abandoned by Creative, this is getting very, very emotional. Not mentioning that the coolest geeks and serious software engineers/computer scientists tend to use Linux or BSD, some distros of Linux like Ubuntu are attracting more and more non-techie users. Google earth has a Linux version and so does Skype. WAKE UP Creative! If Creative does not want to spend money on the Linux driver any more, at least he can release some tech specs allowing the GNU guys work out an ALSA solution. I really hope Creative hear this! Enough people are begging for a Linux driver on Creative's own forum, I've watched long enough to draw a conclusion that the product managers are not listening or even don't care about their own forum. So that I am posting here to add yet another tiny voice. Hope many many tiny voices together can finally wake up Creative.
Otherwise, the advanced technology for new audio processor on the X-Fi line really delivers more superior sound than other sound cards. The difference is even noticeable on very cheap speakers: a lot cleaner, more details and more powerful dynamics. The software package for Windows is reasonably decent. Comprehensive music editing/authoring packages are provided, a joy to use.