Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, Captain Ned
ModernPrimitive wrote:I'm guessing these will show up in stock any day now:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100009293%204804&IsNodeId=1&name=New%20Product
These are one of the things I've been waiting on for a new build but I'm threatening the $59 x-fi titanium that Best Buy has on sale. I'm not an audio hardware expert by any stretch, but from my perspective those new cards like pretty skim on components. Software emulation for stuff that was previously processed via hardware? The "system cpu" requirements are higher than the x-fi but I know such specs don't always mean as much as it may seem. Anyone with an understanding care to chime in? The biggest thing I need is the optical out to my stereo receiver for 5.1 in games.
rcs2k4 wrote:I'm guessing it's an all-in-one chip solution now...?
sluggo wrote:They put a window and LED lighting on a sound card. That alone may tell you all you need to know about the Creative product strategy.
just brew it! wrote:I agree the window is goofy (and counter-productive if the shroud is supposed to be there for EMI filtering), but I have yet to find any reference to LEDs.
Bensam123 wrote:Yeah, the new chip from best I can tell is to compete with Via, Cmedia, and Realtek in the integrated audio front. The pezzaz of a dedicated card died out with EAX so now it's all about volume distributors. I would stick with a X-Fi.
Madman wrote:(Creative rant)
just brew it! wrote:If I need a high-quality discrete audio card in the future, I'll get something which uses an off-the-shelf C-Media codec (e.g. Xonar) or VIA codec (e.g. M-Audio). There's really no justification for going with Creative's overpriced-for-what-you-get proprietary hardware any more.
ModernPrimitive wrote:I'm curious to see where Creative goes now. Will they introduce more high end cards like the Titanium HD with Burr Brown and swappable opamps or ditch them all and go for stripped parts like the new gen.
rcs2k4 wrote:I'm not convinced this all-in-one chip will offer anything better than what the crab/c-media based on-board audio can produce.
rcs2k4 wrote:Like I posted a bit further up, the PCB for both of those new cards looks naked. I'm not convinced this all-in-one chip will offer anything better than what the crab/c-media based on-board audio can produce. There's no seperate DAC's for a start - it's completly bare. Those things have existed on soundcards for a reason (With varying quality!), and I believe were the whole point in buying one in the first place - To get top quality analogue sound.
rcs2k4 wrote:Like I posted a bit further up, the PCB for both of those new cards looks naked. I'm not convinced this all-in-one chip will offer anything better than what the crab/c-media based on-board audio can produce. There's no seperate DAC's for a start - it's completly bare.