Choice of 2 soundcards, help please

[belveder]

I am looking to buy a soundcard, have cut the choice down to 2 soundcards.

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCIe Fatal1ty Pro Series or Asus Xonar D2X Ultra Fidelity PCI-E.

I have read reviews on both of them and they both sound real good, can't figure out which one to get. I do a lot of movie and audio editing plus gaming so I need an excellent all-rounder that is good with digital speakers.

I use Vista 64.

I'm leaning towards the Creative because I like the I/O drive, but I have heard a lot of bad stuff about Creative since Vista came out.

Any help appreciated

 

[PsyKhiqZero]

I would say that creative has finally got it's act together when it comes to their drivers and vista. I'm gaming on vista x64 with my old audigy zs 2 and it's great. From what little i've read on sound cards I would say the creative ones are the better choice for gaming while the asus xonar are better for music and HTPC.

 

[TorQueMoD]

Actually I'd go with a regular PCI based card over a PCI-E because strangely the PCI-E cards have a bigger impact on your frame rates, sometimes as much as 15% (to quote PCGamer)

If you MUST choose one of these two cards, then I'd vote for the Creative card. The Xonar is good, but the Creative card is better. Actually, both cards were reviewed in this month's PCGamer (US) and the Xonar got 86% whereas the Creative got 93%. Their reasoning: The X-FI still comes in on top thanks to its support of EAX5. In most games the Xonar is on par, but in games like Battlefield 2 that wring the most out of EAX5, a X-FI can't be beat.

Also the Xonar has some compatibility issues that might force you to roll back your BIOS.

 

[belveder]

I've been reading that the Xonar aren't very good for gaming

 

[belveder]

I posted this same question on other forums and was recommended the Auzen X-FI Prelude 7.1, so now I have 3 choices, anyone had experiences with this card and does it have DTS and Dolby Digital Live available yet?

 

[4Ryan6]

I'm running the Creative Extreme Gamer Fatal1ty Pro PCI and its rock solid in Vista 32&64bit, also the same for WinXP Pro 32bit, I read a review where the Auzentech beat it by less than a frame per second, and to me thats just not worth the Auzentechs extra cost.

But the choice is up to you!