Auzentech X-FI Prelude 7.1 9/10/07

for anyone looking to invest in a new HT/Gaming sound card, the Auzentech X-FI Prelude 7.1 has a tentative scheduled release date of September 10th (around august - september time frame is probably more reliable, since its been delayed a couple times so far due to correcting drivers issues and such). and just going by its specs alone, its worth waiting for compared to what else is currently available, at least waiting for some reviews to pop up to see if it is worth it, most likely it will be since their hardware and drivers are pretty good usually (for starters, it combines an upgradable, improved x-fi based board; eax 5.0, 64mb x-ram, etc. with ddl and dts interactive encoding hardware). for anyone interested, googling for it will turn up a lot of results.

http://www.auzentech.com/site/prod [...] ecificatio ns

auzentech has updated their page, its officially available to purchase now for $199 (im assuming thats american currency, but the price between countries should be about the same)

it wont be using creatives drivers, since the hardware itself is different. they were having numerous delays to get the drivers stable, and newer hardware features will be introduced through additional driver updates, such as dolby digital live, and dts interactive. the hardware itself is already above par to existing x-fi cards, the SnR is improved for instance, with certain parts of the card also being user upgradable (the front channels).

but, auzentech is known for making quality cards and drivers... creative just lent out their technology for the first time. third parties are no longer limited to just eax 2.0, for instance. and now are allowed full hardware support for all the other features, modifying drivers and such as needed. maybe other companies will be allowed the same luxury.

edit: ah, i see what you mean when it says creatives drivers... but if you look elsewhere such as in the pdfs, theyre not using stock creative drivers either, and are still in the process of correcting remaining problems with them, till theyre all fixed most likely. creatives drivers would seem to be the point at which theyre building from.

it seems worth it to me, at least if you dont already have an X-FI anyhow (youd still be getting a better card, but i dont think it would be worth the comparatively small improvement, imo). it seems to combine the best of all worlds, and its probably not too good to be true, simply because of the price, which seems more in line just because of how much it offers compared to competing sound cards.

and yep, the specs are better than other X-FIs, but again, probably not worth switching if you already own one, unless you really really want the improved/added specs.

most likely the price will drop after a somewhat short time anyhow at other retailers, as thats just the price that auzentech lists on their site.

now all we need to do is wait for some reviews..

might be. at least creative isnt alone in getting the drivers working for this card, which is good, so the drivers should be at the very least as good as what they currently have available, as far as reliability.

imo, this is probably the one worthwhile card for them to work on right now, and, if the drivers really are being lagged on that much, that might very well be why even. unless theyre just having a ton of difficulties getting all the other drivers to work (if they are working on them currently), which might not bode well for vista driver support in general, *shrug*

I'm getting a X-Fi ExtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro for 80$ shipped.....is it worth that much better?

After reading through the Auzentech site, it seems to me that this is a Creative X-FI card that's been packaged by a third party, much the same as ATI cards are sold by several third party vendors, as well as Nvidia cards. The final package may or may not be better then a standard Creative X-FI, can't say about that. At least there is more choice in the vendors, and that is good. Looked at the Newegg listing and saw no reviews written yet, so either no one has bought one (too expensive?) or no one has bothered to say whether its good, bad, etc.

I realize there are differences such as you mention. At the same time, according to Auzentech, they use a Creative X-Fi CA20K audio processor at the heart of their card, along with Creative drivers and Creative ALchemy. This is why I made the comparison to ATI and Nvidia third party products that use their main chipsets and then add differing components to support the chipset. Thus my meaning when I said that its a Creative X-Fi that's been packaged by a third party. The base chipset is the same, the drivers are the same, some of the accompanying components are different.

Is it worth the extra money, does it actually perform better? No one knows for sure. As I wrote, no reviews had been submitted yet, therefore there is nothing to go by. In time, there should be some reviews written. At that time, we will be able to see if it lives up to the promise or not. I do find this card interesting in concept. Whether it will work as well as advertised for the money charged is another question.

Four words: Front Panel Audio Connector! Auzentech has one, stock X-Fi's don't. That, in and of itself, is worth about $100 >;o)

Man, I'm such a dork...

im curious, but where did you read that the front audio connector has a poor quality amplifier?

if its the front left and right channel operational ampifiers youre referring to, those are user replacable to better quality 3rd party ones.

Therein might be a difference between the Creative X-Fi that I use and what some people might think of when they refer to a Creative X-Fi. I have the X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion on both my computers, which does have a front panel audio connector, along with a remote control. Don't know exactly how different the internal parts of this card differ from the standard Creative X-Fi, but it does work very well on both my computers.

My X-FI is hooked up to my front panel, card and cable under $100.00. You have to know what to look for.
Granted it's only my mic and headphone jack, but it's possible.

What's a PITA?

Yes it can and it was. Only regarding doing the research to make sure it worked and it does.

as far as game support, AFAIK, it would only require the same software support that other X-FIs need. since the other chipsets/hardware isnt game dependant that ive used before. the only software really needed, would be driver support i would imagine, and configuration software to change audio settings.

Those reviews show an impressive card. Needs some fine tuning in the drivers and a better mike input, but the rest lools very good for those of us with expensive speakers. I also liked the honesty from the Xtremesystems review that said if a person has less expensive (under $200) speakers, they won't notice any difference from Creative's X-Fi. But now that I know that this card does do well with good speakers, I'll be looking at it when I do my new build.