Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic review

These days almost every motherboard has its own built-in sound chip, which can comfortably handle everyday music and games.

Pricier boards come with multiple-channel surround sound and digital interfaces, so is it worth investing in a dedicated sound card?

Creative certainly thinks so, and has just released four PCI cards that replace its internal Audigy line-up. The X-Fi XtremeMusic reviewed here is the most affordable model and can record or play back sound at up to 24-bit, 96KHz quality. The more expensive Platinum version uses the same PCI card, but comes with a remote control and an I/O module that sits in a 5" drive bay.

All four cards have a software control panel that places the audio-processing chip into one of three modes for entertainment, audio or game use. Creative says each mode directs flexible resources to the task in hand, improving the results, but it's a pity the drivers can't make the choice for you.

We were interested to see whether the X-Fi's audio quality was significantly better than that of a typical motherboard chipset, such as the Realtek ALC860 on our Intel reference board. We used a short 3.5mm jack cable to connect the input and output of each card, and ran RightMark Audio Analyzer's loopback test on both. The X-Fi's results were markedly better than the onboard sound chip's. It recorded an impressively high signal-to-noise ratio of 101.5dB(A), compared with our motherboard's 78dB(A), and the response curve was flatter, even at high frequencies of 30KHz or more.

Music files sounded brighter and more detailed through the X-Fi than from the onboard chip, but the improvement wasn't overwhelming. You probably wouldn't notice the difference unless you can tell a 128Kbit/s MP3 file from a CD track and a have a decent set of speakers, for example.

This card supports a range of surround-sound decoding, including recent 7.1 standards such as DTS ES and Dolby Digital EX. It also has Creative's EAX Advanced HD 5.0 processing, designed to improve the quality of sound in games. Few current titles support this, but the included Doom 3 patch proved that it delivers great things. In truth, the game's improved soundtrack gave us the fear.

It's not cheap, but this sound card is a definite step up from an onboard device, particularly if you're a keen gamer. It's good for music playback too, but there are cheaper cards that are more suitable for high-quality audio use.