Creative Announces World’s First Native PCI Express Hardware Accelerated Sound Cards
The worldwide leader in digital entertainment products for PC users, Creative has announced the launch of a pair of world’s first native PCI Express hardware accelerated sound cards - PCI-E Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series and PCI-E Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series.
“We’ve developed the PCI Express models of our Sound Blaster X-Fi gaming sound cards to meet the specific requests that we’ve received from end users,” said Steve Erickson, VP and GM of audio and VLSI for Creative. “We have re- architected our X-Fi processor so we can deliver even more performance and provide the best audio available on the PC today. You’ll know why it’s worth the upgrade to PCI Express the second you hear it. We’ve also added Dolby Digital encoding, for connection to a home theater system for an awesome gaming experience. We created an entirely new I/O drive with an innovative design that can fit either a 3 1/2″ or 5 1/4″ drive bay. Plus, the Sound Blaster Titanium series cards are optimized for Windows Vista with UAA- compliant hardware.”
According to the company, the new PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series sound card (priced at $149.99) which features Dolby Digital encoding for single-cable connection to home theater systems can provide ultra-realistic EAX 5.0 sound effects and positional 3D audio. Besides, the Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series sound card (priced at $199.99) includes all of the features of Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series and adds an internal I/O drive for quick front panel headphones and headsets connection that will fit into 5.25 or 3.5 external drive bay.
Features Of PCI-E Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series and PCI-E Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series Sound Cards:
- Creative X-Fi processor specifically designed for high-speed PCI Express slots in modern PCs
- X-Fi Crystalizer technology, which leverages audio algorithms to intelligently and selectively determine how to restore the highs and lows from sound effects, instruments and vocals and voices that were damaged or diminished during the MP3, AAC, game audio or other compression processes
- X-Fi CMSS-3D technology, to create virtual surround sound through speakers or headphones in games or music. In games, you hear your opponents in their exact location. With music, the sound expands so it completely surrounds you
- Dolby Digital support for compelling 5.1 surround sound through a home theater system
- Creative ALchemy to restore EAX and surround sound in DirectSound game titles running under Vista
- Certified UAA compliance for maximum Windows Vista compatibility
- X-RAM dedicated audio memory to boost performance in select games
- THX Certified surround sound for cinematic movie audio playback
- PowerDVD software with DTS-ES and Dolby Digital-EX decoding
- 24-bit audio quality and 109db SNR audio clarity
- ASIO recording support with latency as low as one millisecond with minimal CPU load
Both of the new Creative’s PCI Express sound cards are now available for pre-order at Amazon.com/pcguts, Creative.com and Frys.com.
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May 19th, 2008 01:55
after they disabled DD decoding in X-Fi cards in Vista to push the customers to buy a new card, I no longer trust this company and will not buy any of their products.
May 19th, 2008 07:41
How do you know they disabled it for that reason?
It could simply just be for compatibility reasons.
There is LOTs of reasons for disabling a feature.
Creative Cards are good, even if they disabled it. there will always be a hacker around who will fix up these things.
go for the best then get a hacked driver!
May 19th, 2008 10:13
If I read the spec, the only difference is Dolby digital life. Finally it’s on Creative Soundcard. But other than that it not worthed. My Microtect V6UPL that I buy in year 1999 are still get new driver till now, and I am able to use it in Vista. I prety sure I can also use it in Windows 7 then it came out. The point is Future Investation, driver support.
May 19th, 2008 20:40
To Caudex: if I pay for the card I expect that it will work without any help from hackers.
Read the comments on Creative’s forum and you’ll learn that they switched off DD decoding on purpose (not for compatibility reasons), which was proved by a hacker who turned on this feature back. Don’t you think it means cheating on clients who bought their product?