Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1TY Professional Series

surtitanuj

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Hi All,

I am planning to buy a new sound card and following are My computer specifications,

Lenovo Core 2 Duo E4400 @ 2GHZ.
3GB DDR2 RAM.
Power Supply Corsair VX 550 Watts.
Graphic Card ATI Radeon HD 5830 1 GB.
Speaker System 2.1 Logitech Z 2300.
Slot Available PCIE 1X.

Normally I am watching movie, playing games and listening music. I am planning to buy Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1TY Professional Series. Taking into consideration My PC configuration and speaker system requesting you to give your valuable advise on,

1. This sound card which is THX Certified.

2. INR price in Mumbai.

3. If this one is not better then suggest which is the best one in the same category which gives best sound output for movie, games and music.

Also, reply back to Me if this information provided is not sufficient enough to give your precious advise.

Thanks In Advance.




 
Solution
The Forte and HomeTheater have the same processing chip.
And are a level above the Bravura as is the Prelude.
The Hometheater is the Flagship card and is loaded with extra features and cost well over $250 here.
I would never spend that kind of money on a sound card but to each his own
The HomeTheater is geared for 7.1 and external A/V set-ups.
So i would suggest the Forte for your needs it's very good for music and also their best gaming card.
I'm very familiar with your speakers and i also use a 2.1 system.
I think you'd be very pleased with the Forte.

surtitanuj

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Hi friends,

Thanks a lot for your kind reply.

Taking into consideration My PC configuration and Speaker system which card you will suggest from the list given. I am a bass lover, and normally I watch movie, music and games on My PC.
 
I own the Forte and i'm very pleased with it.
It has all the same features as the X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Pro plus extras like swappable opamps and seperate headphone and microphone amps.
And here in Canada cost as much as $60 less.
Wolfram23 another member here, who i respect and value for his insights, owns a Bravura and says it's first class.
You really can't miss on either card imo.
http://www.auzentech.com/site/support/comparison.php
http://www.auzentech.com/site/support/ComparisonChart1.xhtml
 

grafixmonkey

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I was looking at those cards also, but was turned off by the relatively high number of Newegg reviews saying those cards died after less than a year of use.

Of course Newegg reviews are not exactly Wikipedia-quality sources...

Do you think those issues are real? I'm also in the unfortunate collision of "wants to play games" and "does not want to buy Creative".
 

grafixmonkey

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Creative has always been somewhat "infamous" for the quality of their drivers.

There seem to be differing reports on who writes the drivers for Auzentech cards also, whether it's Creative or not. (Maybe Auzentech cards have the Creative drivers but not the bloatware? No idea.)

Just read Newegg reviews on your choice of Auzentech card, there are some that come highly recommended on these forums that enjoy a 50/50 or worse spread of 5-eggs "it rocks" vs. 1-egg "it died", with ominous patterns in the ownership durations...

Personally I'd love to hop on a Bravura if I wasn't worred about that. Really I want an Asus Xonar with an X-Fi chip for full games support.
 

Well Newegg has just started selling Auzentech cards very recently.
Within the last 2-3 months at high prices imo.
They just started stocking Forte's which have been available elsewhere for over a year.
Bravura's are brand new cards about 6 months old tops.
I don't know maybe it's me but Newegg always seems to have an inordinate amount of doa's and dud products imo.
NCIX has been selling Auzentech for years and i've yet to read a terrible review on their cards yet.
 

grafixmonkey

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That's weird, I tried a Forte in my current system exactly one year ago that I purchased from Newegg. Card had some strange incompatibility with my mobo (my system wouldn't POST, but in other systems it worked fine) which I chalked up to my system being weird. (Server motherboard, newer chipset and all that.)

At that time the X-Fi Prelude had over a hundred raving reviews but had sold out, or I would have jumped on that instead. I'm questioning whether my incompatibility may have been PCIe related because a PCI X-Fi XTremeAudio (which isn't X-Fi strangely enough) works fine.

All that aside, Newegg has definitely been selling Auzen for well over a year... I'd guess something like at least a year and a half to two to build up that kind of review count.

Most of the reviews I'm reading loved the X-Fi HT and the Bravura "while it worked" but have had at least one die prematurely after 2 to 13 months of use and can't get in contact with support. So not a DOA thing.


I dunno. Naturally you can only draw so much information from a limited number of customer reviews, but a 50/50 spread with all the good reviews in the "1 day to 1 week" mark and all the bad ones at the "1 month to 1 year" mark raised a warning flag for me.


EDIT:

Personally I've decided to remember all the crap Creative has pulled and make good on some words I sent their direction multiple times over the years. That company is bad for us, bad for the market, bad for competition, and bad for the continued progress of sound card technology. I'm going to avoid X-Fi entirely, so that game developers don't feel the need to develop and pay royalties for a Creative-owned IP platform.
 

leon2006

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I have benn using Creative XFI fatality for ~ 2 years without any issues. I had on 2 of my machines (one on XP & the other on 64 Bit Vista). Never had issues with driver or whatsoever.

For True High Definition Audio (24 Bit 192db ) 7.1 audio Asus Xonar card is so far the best. Azuntech is a repackage Creative hardware with a different software. Hardware wise its inferior compare to Asus Xonar hardware.

Hardware wise Asus XONAR provides the best True HD 7.1 Audio.
 

grafixmonkey

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Auzentech is more than a repackage of Creative.

They use the same DSP chip but that's all. The rest of the board is 100% Auzentech design with high quality analog components. (Which matters, if you use analog amp and speakers, but not if you don't.)

The drivers ARE a repackage of Creative's. The drivers are Creative drivers with a dolby something-something support module added in that Creative cards don't have the chip to support.

The drivers may or may not contain Creative's bloated utilities. I don't know if that's the case or not.
 

surtitanuj

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Hey u guys r amazing there is so much of knowledge and expert views have flown based on which atleast I have Shift Deleted to buy Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1TY.

But taking into consideration My speaker system and other specifications which sound card you all will suggest.

Thanks In Advance.
 

Read the article and there's nothing contained within suggesting Asus is better.
All it says is they received an Asus card and it worked in their test.
They didn't receive any cards from anyone else to conduct the test in 2008.
Quote from the article
"ASUS and Auzentech are both working on these HDMI sound cards that should solve all of our HTPC problems. While both were supposed to be available over the summer, driver and software delays have pushed back both release dates to the last few months of 2008."
The Auzentech Forte wasn't released until about the last month of 2008 early 2009.
The Bravura is even newer.
I'm not knocking Asus i think they're good cards.
But your knocking Auzentech based on what?
 
To reply to the earlier exchange with grafixmonkey i'm not here to get into pissing matches with anyone that's not the point of this forum.
And i'm really too old to care.
The OP asked about the top of the line Creative card and i simply listed viable alternatives since the Forte has every single feature the Fatal1ty offers plus more and is cheaper.
Instead of making post like your first one.
"I was looking at those cards also, but was turned off by the relatively high number of Newegg reviews saying those cards died after less than a year of use. "
And your second one.
"The drivers may or may not contain Creative's bloated utilities. I don't know if that's the case or not"
Surprisingly your third post says you owned one lol!
Doesn't ring true my friend.
Which is it?
For godsake just be honest.
Don't ever try that line of logic in a court of law..
You'll lose.








 

surtitanuj

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Hi Davcon,

You r absolutely right Davcon. Purpose for which I raised this query is going on some other path of argument instead of healthy sharing of views. Anyway, I really respect your answer to My thread and precious time which you gave for giving those chart and website address.

One final word from you. Just compared those charts and I am not tht much technical xpert for which pardon Me but based on the comparison chart which you gave and whtever I understood from tht I hv selected "AUZEN X-MERIDIAN 7.1" but again I need your kind advise on this too. Should I buy this taking into consideration My speaker system and PC configuration OR from tht comparison chart which one you will suggest to Me. My basic purpose is playing games, music and movies and I m a bass lover. Also slot available at present is Slot Available PCIE 1X.
 

Hi surtitanuj!


Unfortunately the Meridian is no longer produced so it's not availiable.(too bad it was a heck of a card).
The Chart is useful but outdated in regards to Auzentech's own product line.
They have a very good new card called the Bravura which has great features for it's pricepoint including a seperate headphone amp.
Here's a Canadian link with a good summary of features and an idea of price(a very good price at the moment)
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=49090&vpn=AZT-BRAVURA&manufacture=AuzenTech
I'll link the Forte as well,it's more of a gamers card and has X-RAM and everything else a Fatal1ty has plus a headphone amp.(it's what i have).
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=35596&vpn=AZTXFF7105551&manufacture=AuzenTech
As you can see both are PCI-E 1.1 but can be used in any pci slot so they suit your requirement.
http://www.auzentech.com/site/support/comparison.php
Also both have new drivers available from http://www.auzentech.com/site/index.php
I think the Bravura would meet your requirements very well since it's a well rounded card.
The only reason i'm not using a Bravura is that at the time of purchase the Forte was only $20 more.
 

surtitanuj

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Hi Davcon,

Just checked the comparison chart on auzentech site and may go for X-Fi Bravura 7.1 which you advised but just wanted to know is their any other qulity and feature difference in X-Fi Forte 7.1 , X-Fi Prelude 7.1 and X-Fi HomeTheater HD against X-Fi Bravura 7.1 like sound qulity etc because I m flexible enough to spent a money for a good card.

If answer is no then I will buy X-Fi Bravura 7.1

And

If yes, then from X-Fi Forte 7.1 , X-Fi Prelude 7.1 and X-Fi HomeTheater HD I may buy X-Fi HomeTheater HD. So which one you will suggest from these 3.

Thanks In Advance.
 
The Forte and HomeTheater have the same processing chip.
And are a level above the Bravura as is the Prelude.
The Hometheater is the Flagship card and is loaded with extra features and cost well over $250 here.
I would never spend that kind of money on a sound card but to each his own
The HomeTheater is geared for 7.1 and external A/V set-ups.
So i would suggest the Forte for your needs it's very good for music and also their best gaming card.
I'm very familiar with your speakers and i also use a 2.1 system.
I think you'd be very pleased with the Forte.
 
Solution

surtitanuj

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Thanks a lot for your kind guidance on this and sharing of knowledge and definately just like yours even I will go for X-Fi Forte 7.1 instead of spending on those two.

:bounce: Thank you very much Davcon. :bounce:
 

Hi surtitanuj!,
Your're very welcome and i hope you can source a Forte in India.
Good luck!:)