Our testing methods
To test the X-Fi Fatal1ty's X-RAM, we'll be comparing the card's performance with that of the X-RAM-less X-Fi XtremeMusic in Battlefield 2 and Quake 4—the only commercial titles that currently support Creative's onboard memory scheme. We'll also be testing the Fatal1ty's audio playback quality in RightMark Audio Analyzer to see how it compares with the XtremeMusic, and we've even probed some of the Fatal1ty I/O drive's extra input and output ports.

Since this review focuses on the Fatal1ty's unique features, we haven't run the card through a full suite of audio performance and listening tests against a wider range of competitors. You can see how the X-Fi stacks up against other sound cards in our exhaustive XtremeMusic review. We have included our motherboard's integrated Realtek ALC850 AC'97 audio as a reference point, though.

All tests were run at least twice, and their results were averaged, using the following test systems.

Processor AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz
System busHyperTransport 16-bit/1GHz
Motherboard DFI LANParty UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert
BIOS revisionNF4EDC07
North bridgeNVIDIA nForce4 SLI
South bridge
Chipset driversForceWare 6.70
Memory size2GB (2 DIMMs)
Memory type  Corsair CMX1024-3500LLPRO DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
CAS latency (CL)2
RAS to CAS delay (tRCD)3
RAS precharge (tRP)2
Cycle time (tRAS)6
Command rate1T
Hard drives Western Digital Raptor WD360GD 37GB SATA
Audio Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic
Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty		nForce4 SLI/ALC850
Audio driverCreative 2.07.0004Realtek 3.82
GraphicsNVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX with ForceWare 81.98 drivers
OS Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS updatesService Pack 2, DirectX 9.0c

Thanks to Corsair for providing us with memory for our testing. 2GB of RAM seems to be the new standard for most folks, and Corsair hooked us up with some of its 1GB DIMMs for testing.

Our test systems were powered by OCZ PowerStream power supply units. The PowerStream was one of our Editor's Choice winners in our latest PSU round-up.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1280x1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests. Most of the 3D gaming tests used the Medium detail image quality settings, with the exception that the resolution was set to 640x480 in 32-bit color.

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.