Advantages: Great Dolby/DTS decoder, excellent sound quality and gaming audio
Disadvantages: expensive

...This is the X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS endorsed by professional gamer Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel. X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS also features a glowing Fatal1ty logo on the soundcard and drive bay(!!!!!!).Err, ok, moving on.... First up, whats included in the package. You get the card, a 5.25 inch drive bay with various audio inputs and outputs which I wil detail later, and a remote that can be used to make changes to volume and other functions, also mentioned later. The installation CD contains drivers and also the following: Doom3 EAX patch, Audio Console, Creative MediaSource & DVD-Audio Player, DTS Neo:6, Karaoke Player, Smart Recorder, SoundFont Bank Manager, THX Setup Console, Vienna SoundFont Studio, Console Launcher, Volume Panel, WaveStudio, Creative Media Toolbox, Creative Diagnostics. Drivers and software can be autoupdated via the creative... Read review

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Advantages: Crystal clear sound with a comprehensive software package
Disadvantages: Features can be a bit daunting for the novice

...I've used all the creative card models from the soundblaster 5.1 to this latest card, and I can say it is an amazing leap forward. Even using headphones the differnce in sound quality from the Audigy 2 is noticeable, with truly amazing effects during both games and DVD playback. There is no distortion or noise whilst playing music, which was the case with some of the earlier cards. However plug in to a decent 7.1 speaker set, like the creative inspire 7.1 analogue speakers, and prepare for truly amazing effects. Switch on the CMSS 3D, during playback of a stereo movie and you'll swear you are in the screen. Playback of 6.1 or DTS soundtracks is better than my Pioneer 812 standalone A/V receiver (and cost a 10th of the price). Speaking of which I managed to pick this up for under £80, which is a bargain, for pure sound. When plugged... Read review

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Advantages: Under XP this is a great souncard for games and musicians.
Disadvantages: Under Vista there have been issues.

...'s a new kid on the block now, described by overclockers.co.uk as 'X-Fi reborn'. It's an Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 and the name suggests that an association has been made between Creative and another company to produce it. My bottom lip trembles to see this though because, if the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 is my card 'reborn' then I must have a card that cost an arm and a leg under a year ago, but that the industry sees as effectively dead. The good news is that these reports of its death are greatly exaggerated. The Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatality FPS is still very much alive and kicking so long as it's running in Windows XP. As all of the functions including hardware acceleration are proving perfectly reliable in that OS, and as the Internet is filled with comparative tables to show that gaming FPS goes down in most games when you... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Awesome Sound Quality, Easy to install, Drivers easy to get, good support
Disadvantages: Clicks in Entertainment Mode

...I managed to pick up an OEM Version of the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music from eBay for around £30 around 3 months ago. It is very easy to install, simply slot it into an empty slot and install the drivers and software. Wow! What a difference! I upgraded from onboard sound and the quality difference is unbelievable. I have the card paired with Logitech z-640 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers and a Medusa Speedlink 5.1 Surround headset. Not only does the card come packed with features for example the 24-bit crystaliser, but it is easy to use and configure with the Creative Audio Console. The card make sounds in games beautiful and music is perfect. However. I had a lot of teething problem with the card. At first, whenever I reset my PC, the card settings were defaulted to headphones, when my speakers were plugged in, muting... Read review

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Advantages: Amazing sound, excellent upmixing
Disadvantages: Software can be a pain.

...BRIEF: I bought this card with some Creative 5.1 Speakers (T6060). The sound quality going from standard MP3, with no upmixing, 24Bit Crystaliser and no EAX effects, to everything turned on, is STUNNING! There is no other word for it. However, the software is slow and there are to many menus to do a simple task. PERFORMANCE: To establish this I had to start by taking a 235Kbps (VBR) track, kindly delievered from ripping a Linkin Park album. I started by playing the track with no upmixing or anything turned on. The track played in 2.0 on the speakers, so it felt dull compared to the surround sound I am used to. As well as this the bass was poor as there was no bass redirection to the subwoofer. After turning on CMSS-3D in the Creative Console, more of an application sweet (but I'll get to that later), the track was playing in 5.1... Read review

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Advantages: High quality sound, excellent features set
Disadvantages: Driver software on CD differs from the Auto-update

...I bought the Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music to complement my Grado SR325 + Creek OBH-1 Headphone Amplifier system, so I could enjoy the music at the best possible quality without having to endure the on-board sound card (although the nForce 680i HD Azalia sound + Realtek chip are fairly good themselves). The card came with the standard installation CD and the card, installation is easy and there are a whole lot of connecting options, if you want to upgrade to 7.1 at some stage (haven't got the floor space at the moment). Installation is easy and although Creative drivers on Windows Vista are still under development, I haven't been experiencing any problems under Windows XP. The chip on the X-fi is the same as the one used on the high-end models, with the lack of more memory (64 MB for the Fatl1ty version) and the front panel... Read review

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Advantages: Amazing sound quality, great for gaming, looks cool, less lag/stuttering in games, transforms music
Disadvantages: Still driver issues and some problems in games, price may still be too steep for some

...your audio devices to the back of it. The only problems with 'installation' you might have is some of the drivers are fairly unstable, so get the newest ones out direct from Creative to be sure you experiance as little of this as possible. I have been using P5800's and a Plantronics Gamecom1 headset and both had the sound sound increased greatly on products that were already of high standard (search them for reviews). All in all its the perfect soundcard for anyone other then extreme autophiles, once the driver issues are sorted out there is nothing to worry about at all, you can even grab it at a decent price now aswell. I woudent say quite exellent value for money, because for some people its still way too much to spend on a soundcard, and there are very good options for cheaper.. the older audigy and soundblaster ranges are both great... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: its just so damn good.
Disadvantages: pricey for a sound card

...Ive been building my own PCs for a number of years and been using them since the early 90s. In all this time ive not really bothered too much with sound cards, more the usually CPU, GFX etc. But this card is a breakthrough for me, its excellent. My previous card was a creative also, a basic soundblaster live card, the x-fi improves the quality of sound sooo much. Ive used it with online gaming, mp3s & dvds and have noticed a vast improvement in all areas. The main use for me is with online gaming. The biggest issue with these games is squeezing frames per second -FPS - out of the machine. Remarkably this sound card gave me an instant boost of about 20fps, which was about 30% for me. The immersion factor also increased. I dont know if the competitors can do this, but any card that can give me surround sound from a basic 2.1 speaker... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Excellent sound quality
Disadvantages: Needs Isa Slots

...I have had this card from when it was new, its an old sound card but the quality of sound is better than a lot of the cards I have heard even later creative labs creations. The Card is 16 bit so will fit in the ISA slots so some boards that have only got PCI slots will not take this card. The Card can be bought for around 5.00 on the auctions and is worth every penny. If you are using any compatible SoundBlaster card I would recommend you look on the auctions for the SoundBlaster 16 and buy it. For 5.00 it will give you better sound quality than what you are using now and is compatible with every game on the market.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Amazing value for money, true surround sound, Creative have good drivers/support
Disadvantages: Volume control a bit 'flimsy', there is much better quality out there, wiring up isent fun

...Ive had these speakers since just before buying my X-fi Music a few months ago, and they have been great! For the money they are very good quality, the best by far for the price. They make films and music sound great and can go louder then you could possibly want, with plenty of bass also. They support EAX and are very good for gaming due to being surround sound, they will immerse you as much as is possible in a game and make the experiance much greater. The speakers have a fairly nice look about them with the see-thru fronts to protect the speaker itself and the Creative badge along the bottom of each speaker. They take quite along time to install and tidy the cables, although this is the same for all wired 5.1 systems and i cant see many ways Creative could have fixed this. There are a few downsides to spending so little... Read review

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