Creative Technology Shows Off Audio Card for PCI Express

lay-z-boy · 14 Jan 2007 at 20:52

http://xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20070111140528.html

pci-e elite pro here i come

Dr.EM · 14 Jan 2007 at 21:00

Interesting. So, whats the deal with PCI-E? At the moment it is just one or 2 ports in a computer that are E types isn't it? Is it going to replace PCI altogether? If it isn't I can't see the logic since normal PCI is more than fast enough for soundcards. The one i'm looking at is a 10in, 10out card with 36bit DSP and it's just on normal PCI (and you can readily support much more with the interface). You'd actually have to invent features just to fill the PCI-E's extra bandwidth!

allllec · 15 Jan 2007 at 00:12

Dr.EM said:
Interesting. So, whats the deal with PCI-E? At the moment it is just one or 2 ports in a computer that are E types isn't it? Is it going to replace PCI altogether? If it isn't I can't see the logic since normal PCI is more than fast enough for soundcards. The one i'm looking at is a 10in, 10out card with 36bit DSP and it's just on normal PCI (and you can readily support much more with the interface). You'd actually have to invent features just to fill the PCI-E's extra bandwidth!

i think its just to keep up - although sound cards don't need the bandwidth other expansion cards do.. so it figures to get rid of pci altogether, gives them an excuse to con us into buying new bits as well. cant wait to see the emergence of pci-e SCSI controllers and such..

15k rpm scsi array here i come

bledd · 15 Jan 2007 at 02:20

the return of optical on the card, awesome

_PD_ · 15 Jan 2007 at 11:13

That card may just mean I can go for a Shuttle with 2 PCIx slots and use one for my graphics and one for Audio!

Aceage.

Tunney · 15 Jan 2007 at 11:48

Some new boards only have a couple of regular PCI slots. If you've got a soundcard, WiFi card and a extra set of USB slots then you're stuffed.

I'm glad to see more cards of any type go over to PCI-E.

Alexrose1uk · 15 Jan 2007 at 13:08

Ahhh finally.
I'll be interested to see if these bring additional benefits over the PCI card, not to mention, whether they will have increased Vista features, due to using a contempary bus, rather than a legacy slot that Im sure MS has plans to disown eventually.

kablooey · 15 Jan 2007 at 15:49

Didn't Creative say a PCI-E soundcard would be "impossible" due to poor latency? :rolleyes:

This card looks a little basic, hopefully we'll see X-Fi on PCI-E follow pretty soon.

Phil99 · 15 Jan 2007 at 15:57

kablooey said:
Didn't Creative say a PCI-E soundcard would be "impossible" due to poor latency?

This card looks a little basic, hopefully we'll see X-Fi on PCI-E follow pretty soon.

Something along the lines of it was impossible/impractical for them to do it at the time, but that they were looking at ways round it as PCI-E is suited more to high bandwidth rather than low latency devices (IIRC)

IceAlchemist · 15 Jan 2007 at 17:44

For me it's a good idea if they can get a sound card as good as X-Fi to work on PCI-E as that would mean I can have good sound and maybe opt for crossfire as at the moment I can choose either crossfire with on board sound or an X-Fi on PCI with no crossfire due to poor mobo design

lay-z-boy · 15 Jan 2007 at 21:33

kablooey said:
Didn't Creative say a PCI-E soundcard would be "impossible" due to poor latency?

This card looks a little basic, hopefully we'll see X-Fi on PCI-E follow pretty soon.

with pcie v2 on the corner, the problems that were originally seen when they tried to port the xfi onto pcie will be gone.

The card looks basic because well, it is, many features of the original xfi are not needed due to the high bandwidth of pcie and its a value orientated card.