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 Electronics : Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Platinum FATAL1TY Champion Series (eng/fr) |
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Rating:  - Ear Piercing Shriek = RMA Return
This is the 2nd PCIx1 sound card that I bought for the same Gigabyte motherboard. The first card, an Asus Xonar card, crashed while playing certain games. So, I bought the tried and true Creative. After about 5 minutes of use it emitted an ear-piercing scream - along the lines of a smoke alarm, or building fire alarm. I tried different ports, disconnecting the I/O drive - reinstalling the software - typical things one does to try to avoid the RMA process. Amazon tells me that the replacement is enroute, and I hope that the new one doesn't give me the same problem - because if it does then I'd be looking at replacing the motherboard, assuming then that the sound card isn't the problem. If it does reoccur then I'll try the card in another pc to see what happens. Also, since my experiences with Vista have been less than stellar I've only used XP so I can't report on Vista performance.
Rating:  - Fantastic Sound Card!
Amazon was great about getting the sound card to me pretty soon after I ordered it. It didn't take very much work to get it up and running at all. I'm running windows XP, so that might have something to do with the ease of installation and use. I'm absolutely loving the sound that I'm getting out of my PC now!
Rating: - X-FI Platinum is horrible
This product is garbage. Bought it because the specs looked awesome, but there is a HUGE catch: there is a well known issue that some of these cards (if not all) will introduce a popping noise into your audio. Creative acknowledges the snap-crackle-pop issue, but does nothing to remedy the problem. No patch, no replacements, nothing. This leads me to believe they have faulty hardware. They blamed certain motherboard manufacturers, but other people with other motherboards have experienced the exact same issues.
I wouldn't recommend creative products to my worst enemy after buying this card.
Rating: - Great 5.1 Surround Mixes
The quality of sound coming thru my computer speakers is critical to me. The sound that comes from the "built in" sound devices on most mother boards today may provide the latest in 7.1 technology, but if you listen to music critcally as I do, there's just too much inherent noise. The answer is an add-on sound card. I prefer the ease of connection from the front bay interface that the Creative card provides. All the connections for audio are there, digital and analog, except the XLR type. If you need those, other external devices can provide that. Now, I'm not a gamer, so you may ask "why did you purchase a 'gamer' sound card?" Well, the quality afforded this card is not lost on me. My studio is capable of producing 5.1 surround mixes of the music I record. To mix them down I need an exacting device with stellar specs. My choices were few in the price range I wanted. The front access drive bay was the deciding factor.
This sound card connected to my Logitech Z-5500 speakers brings my listening experience to new heights of clarity. The built-in "Crystalizer" adds impact and clarity and has a wide range of adjustment.
Of course it can be shut off too, but once you hear the difference, you'll probably choose to have at least some level of enhancement. This is the best sound card I've ever purchased, and as long as motherboards provide a PCI slot, any upgrades I make, I'll be swapping this sound card over. Amazon.com's price with the free shipping was my deciding factor where to purchase. My local stores wanted 199.99 for the card. Amazon beat that by 25.00.
Rating:  - takes some time, but worth it
at first this might sound like a lot of negative, but there is positive in the end, trust me.
after coming home late one night after a long day of work my roommate informs me that i have a package from amazon. i do my happy dance and open the package, and in it is my new mouse and sound card.
right away i tare into my computer and do some re-arranging of my custom built "Green Machine". i place the 5.25" slot face panel in my lowest of 5 slots, then my all in 1 card reader, then my DVD drive(soon to be re-placed by Blu-Ray), and lastly at the top, my DVD reader/burner. i open my side panel and slide in the PCI slot card attach the cable to connect the Front Panel unit and the card, boot my computer up install the drivers and....music for 1 second and then silence, then music for another second then silence...
after about 5 mins of this, i get upset and turn off my computer to deal with it in the morning after some much needed rest.
i uninstall, and re-install, nothing different.
i go to creative's website and download both new versions of drivers, nothing different.
so i try and contact customer service, and what a joke that is.
to even try and get to the e-mail form you have to go through about 6 screens of "did you try this?" yes, i did, i'm not an idiot.
so after e-mailing them and hearing back with only "go to this site and try what it says, then tell me exactly you tried to do and i'll tell you what you're doing wrong..." is it so hard to give out a tech support phone number?
anyway. the only useful information they gave me was "try updating your BIOS"
so i did, and nothing.
then i realized that i still have my on-board sound "working". so in BIOS i disabled it. (i had already uninstalled the drivers for it), still the same problem.
then the next day (three days with out sound on my computer so far) i start it up, play with it some more, and finally it works.
and it works beautifully.
that's why i still give it 5 stars. once i got it up and running, it works great!
i can't wait to try out the digital features on it. and being a recording guy for some local musicians i can't wait to hook up my sound desk to the RCA input on the front panel.
**EDIT**
after heavy use of this card, i still rate for 4 stars. and not even due to the difficulty of setup.
the front panel.
they only way to get the digital signal to my sound system is on the front panel. the port is right above the volume knob to the head phones. and with 1/4 inch head phone jack and mic jack in place (for playing World of Warcraft) it is quite hard to turn the small knobs to adjust volumes.
still a great card. i design sound at home, for theatre that i work for, and the sound is great. i have had no problems with it yet. and the RCA inputs work great too. and with audacity installed you have the "what u hear" option of recording.
i say, if you have the cash, and the space, buy this card!
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