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Friday 16th May 2008

New PCI Express Titanium X-Fi announced

Posted at: 5:23am 16th May 2008 by James Morris

Creative announces new PCI-E Titanium X-Fis, now with Dolby Digital encoding at long last

X-Fi Titanium

Creative took the UK/EU Qualifier of the Champion Gaming Series as its cue to launch a new version of its SoundBlaster X-Fi audio card. The Titanium Fatal1ty range sports native PCI Express, but with a few extra enhancements.

Most welcome is the ability to encode surround sound to Dolby Digital, for sending over S/PDIF to an external decoder. This is something that was sorely missed on earlier X-Fis – and was a major source of criticism. The Dolby Digital encoding is host-based (i.e. performed in software by your CPU), so a future free driver release will add DTS encoding as well. The Titanium is also compliant with Windows Vista’s Universal Audio Architecture, which replaces WDM audio drivers.

There will be two initial versions of the Titanium – the Fatal1ty Professional Series and the Fatal1ty Champion Series. The Professional version is the card on its own, whilst the Championship card comes with a new I/O drive bay. The box will fit in either a 3.5in or 5.25in bay, although the caddy for the latter also includes RCA line-in connections. Creative has completely redesigned this breakout box with the gamer in mind. All buttons are backlit, for easier use in a darkened room. The knobs are recessed, popping out when depressed, so they don’t fall foul of chassis doors. There are also discrete buttons for game mode, CMSS-3D, and the 24-bit Crystallizer. The headphone socket is now a minijack rather than 1/4in, recognising the usual connector on most gaming headphones.

The Titanium card itself has a few new features. Aside from optical I/O on the backplate for the Dolby Digital encoding, there are now four discrete stereo minijacks, for analog 7.1 surround output. The drivers allow you to associate an EXE with a profile, so the card will switch modes automatically as you load a particular game or application. For those with case windows, the cards are enticingly black, with full-length emission shields.

The Titanium X-Fi Fatal1ty Professional Series is already listed on Scan.co.uk for £99.98. The two new cards are just the beginning, too. Creative also plans further members of the Titanium range, some of which will put the focus back in the direction of more professionally-oriented audiophiles.



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X-Fi Titanium

X-Fi Titanium

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Comments
Not for 3-Way SLi

PCI-E is all very well. No doubt more data can be processed. However, have you seen the latest motherboard configurations? The XFX 780i and 790i Ultra and the latest Asus series of 3-Way SLi Motherboards. The PCI-E x1 slot required by the X-Fi, sits in between 2 PCI-E x16 Slots. So, if you choose to go for the GX2 Graphics Card, the PCI-E x1 is immediately redundant. You can't put anything in it. So let's say, that you've got the latest high-end tri-SLi MOBO but choose to go for a lower model Graphics card (yes, you'd really do that wouldn't you!) i.e. a 9600 GT XXX instead of a chunky GX2 or GTX. Although the GT's are comparatively thin, the cooling fan on the graphics card will have very little air to suck in; because the X-Fi and the Graphics card will sit in parallel with millimetres of space between them. So you'll have to direct the airflow in-between the cards, some how. Otherwise your graphics card will overheat, and overheat the motherboard chipset. It's the same with all high-end Mobo's. So, if the Titanium series of cards are designed for the Hardcore Gamer, why didn't they take into account the design of High-end Mobo's that gamers go for?

Comment by kalcyph at 3:34pm 29th May 2008

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@ EdArch

I cna blmae ti on a hagnovre. Hic!

Comment by crazyceo at 4:27pm 19th May 2008

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PCI-E at last

Glad to see a high end PCI-E X-fi at last. This could mean the beginning of the end for PCI slots seeing as we've have PCI-E TV cards and RAID card for a while now. I hope they release non-fatal1ty models as they do demand a premium and most people just want a card with the latest EAX and 7+channel support.

Comment by combatus at 2:04pm 19th May 2008

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Bit late

This should have been available at the launch of Vista, not now, after a damning backlash from the users for poor treatment of Daniel_k. No mention of wether this card needs a power connector. I certainly will not be spending any more cash on Creative products.

Comment by carlg75 at 6:00am 19th May 2008

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Thats why

We stick with windows it runs everything ;)

Comment by Lightning_Pete at 10:39am 18th May 2008

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I just want a....

...working linux driver...

Comment by conholster at 10:32am 18th May 2008

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christ...

my spelling is crap today...can't even blame it on a hangover :o

Comment by EdArch at 1:46pm 17th May 2008

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hmmm...

does the pricemean that some of the components are actually made of titanium? probably not but then again I was disappointed when I examined my Audigy 2 'platinum' lol the features seem ok, dolby encoding would be useful, however I prefer the external boxes to the drive bay setup as it's less fiddly setting up and using in general. I wonder if the PCIE means the card is faster/more powerful? Not sure how that would be assessed but the higher throughput of PCIE should mean better quality edocing/decoding and output. If they make a version with the external I/O ox then I would conisder buying that, but I'll see what the price is like as my 2nd PC only has onboard audio (and my Audigy 2 platinum pro still works just fine :)

Comment by EdArch at 1:46pm 17th May 2008

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too little, too late.

the damage has been done and most people will not buy creative products due to the "daniel " incident. i sure wont be buying this card. creative should have made a card like this from scratch with everything working on it, i.e - optical output for digital signal, a proper headphone and mic in jack instead of the dire " mic 2 " and " large connector jack adapter " to plug in a set of headphones. although revising a product is not a bad thing, eg - intel with there tick tock method, creative have taken far to long to fix the problems which plagued the original xfi cards. okaaay, anyone want to hazard a guess when that dts encoding update will be released? terrible aftersales from creative regarding updates/drivers and also tech support is useless when you mail them. you would think they could identify a 2 pin header on my xtreme music card, wouldnt you. well, they couldnt. the response i got was " you do not need to use these pins ". bunch of jackasses tbh, just answer my question which i asked please. needless to say i never wrote back and will never be buying from them again.

Comment by dshantalla at 3:36am 17th May 2008

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not all companies do that...

my Remington Titanium has a nice yellowy chromed finish :p

Comment by rickykemp at 10:37pm 16th May 2008

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ohhh titanium marketing..

i allways find it hilarious when companies fit their products with a name involving 'titanium'. they almost allways write titanium in silver, sometimes even covering the box in silvery graphics. titanium is a yellow metal!!

Comment by yougotkicked at 10:09pm 16th May 2008

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Why do I think Return To Castle Wolfenstein everytime I see the Fatal1ty logo...?

Comment by G_Man_007 at 9:15pm 16th May 2008

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pci-e before?

i think its just going to be an extreme audio with a heatsink sprayed black with eax5 and some fixes

Comment by fatman122 at 8:26pm 16th May 2008

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have they managed to fix all the problems they are having with the x-fi series cards in this new card, such as the pc freezing with high pitch noise coming from your head set/general pc crashing.. I do not get any crashing or freezing once the card has been removed.

Comment by dmc_dc at 6:36pm 16th May 2008

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Fatal1ty getting old

I am sick of companys like creative assuming everyone will be buying a Sound Card and pay extra just because they attached the alias for a pro gamer on it. I do game, but I would be buying a pro sound card for audio recording, not to try and assume someone else's identity. I have X-fi Extreme Audio, it is very resource heavy so I think it one won't be an exception, even if they did paint it black and red colour.

Comment by Wolfinton at 5:32pm 16th May 2008

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