Auzentech Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 vs Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty

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Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
Messages
133
So
What is better?
I know both have the XI-FI, but what of them is better for games?
And what is working with Vista 64 bit better and drivers any way ?
And who has the better sound quality ?
 
I am not only asking about drivers, but also about the improvement Creative made to the new soundcard, include the new PCIX and if it changes the quality of sound and frame rate in games
 
Both have a lot of properties in common. The differences that I know of:

-Prelude probably has better DACs (I'm almost sure of this, but no one has reported taking apart a Titanium to be sure)

-Prelude has DTS as of the latest driver release

-Titanium is PCI-E, which can avoid PCI sound stuttering issues that arise with some combinations of hardware (usually some combination of chipset, video card(s), memory, and application)

I don't have a prelude and so can't do comparative testing. I have a PCI X-Fi Fatal1ty but didn't bother doing benchmarking when I got the Titanium. I mostly got the Titanium because my PCI X-Fi made really bad crackling noises when I had 4GB of RAM installed while using SLI on my nforce 4 AMD chipset.

Although eXtremetech has a review that shows the Titanium having a lower CPU utilization on a synthetic audio benchmark than either a PCI X-Fi eXtremeGamer or the PCI-E Xonar DX.

In general I would say that it depends on your hardware. If you want to free up a PCI slot, the Titanium could give you that; if you don't have the curious combinations of hardware that cause problems with some PCI X-Fi cards, then the Prelude is going to give you the same audio performance in games as the Titanium, since they use the same core processor. As noted above, though, I think the Prelude has better DACs, so if you have a really high-end speaker system the Prelude is probably going to sound better.

As far as driver issues... I can't speak to driver issues on the Prelude. The Titanium seems pretty decent so far.
 
It would be nice if a review website would do a FPS comparison between the major cards using EAX, OpenAL, and software audio rendering.

Such testing would take several hours to be thorough, and I just don't have that kind of time.
 
Yep, testting could be nice
Also
I wonder how much is the different between the PCI X and the PCI.
Wonder what is better and how and when.
Also
Drivers issues with Vista with this two, how is it ?
 
Balthazor said:
.....As noted above, though, I think the Prelude has better DACs, so if you have a really high-end speaker system the Prelude is probably going to sound better.

As far as driver issues... I can't speak to driver issues on the Prelude. The Titanium seems pretty decent so far.
Click to expand...

I too was wondering about this issue, as my new rig will comprise either the Prelude or the Titanium...How would you define "high end speaker system"

Some say, the Z-5500 from logitech are in that category, as I have these as well...something like that...or?
Thanks for insight
 
I have the z-5500s. I think they are more mid-range speakers - they may be fairly high-end for dedicated computer speakers, but in the overall world of speakers they are just middle of the road.

Don't get me wrong, I think they're great, but then I just basically do gaming and listen to relatively low quality mp3 files for music. I don't use my computer for movies or high quality music.

Unless you are going to be listening to some pretty high-quality sound sources with higher end speakers I'm not sure you'd be able to tell much difference in quality between the Titanium and Prelude. But you could always see if you can order both products from a retailer with a good return policy and try it yourself; sound is largely in the ear (?) of the beholder.

Or find someone on this forum who has tried both.
 
I have both. I purchased the XFI Titanium in hopes it would fix the sound stuttering that I receive when I went to my XFX 790i Ultra. It did not fix the problem. I had to increase the PCI Latency from 32 too 64 in order to get rid of most of it.

Honestly I find the sound crisper on the Titanium then I do with the Auzentech XFI.
 
I went from x-fi to a prelude with z-5500

the diffrences are driver support. Creative has a tendency of when theres a problem they ignore their customers. Don't believe me hit the creative forums and see for your self.
auzen has a good track with good customer support, the oamps are upgradable to higher quality one. Im running 8 gigs of memory on vista and I have never had a problem unlike when I had x-fi I had the damn cracking sound as the other member here posted.

I'm not hating on Creative, but their driver and tech support has to get better if the want my money.
also you need to think of resale value. with creative track of screwing their customers their resale value are low.

Good luck on your purchase.
 
Hapatingjaky said:
I have both. I purchased the XFI Titanium in hopes it would fix the sound stuttering that I receive when I went to my XFX 790i Ultra. It did not fix the problem. I had to increase the PCI Latency from 32 too 64 in order to get rid of most of it.

Honestly I find the sound crisper on the Titanium then I do with the Auzentech XFI.
Click to expand...

Oddly enough you're the second user to report that the Titanium was crackly on their 790i Ultra.

Odder still that PCI latency would somehow PCI-E audio issues. Maybe something funky with the new chipset that needs to be worked out?
 
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