PCI Express and X-Fi soundcard query

CurlyWhirly · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:38

I am currently thinking about upgrading to the X-Fi soundcard but if I did is it futureproof?

What I mean is within the next year or so I plan to upgrade to a 64 bit PC (and therefore a PCI Express motherboard) so will the X-Fi soundcard fit in it?

In the system requirements it mentions that a PCI 2.1 slot is needed for the audio card, I carried out a quick Google search and it appears to be a newer version of the standard PCI interface or am I mistaken?

If this is the case then it wouldn't be futureproof so I will pass.

Perhaps there are 2 versions PCI and PCI Express :confused:

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks.

charltonfan1 · 15 Mar 2006 at 16:41

All X-Fi's use standard PCI connection. Motherboards will use PCI slots for the next few years to come until PCI-E replaces PCI completely

TooNice · 15 Mar 2006 at 18:38

I am not even convinced that Creative will jump the PCI-e as soon as their next card. They certainly took their time shifting from ISA to PCI. And ISA also took a few years to phase out, I expect no less with PCI.

Keep in mind I am only speculating here

Oh yea, there is a 2.2. It's been around for a while, but mostly on server motherboards. It is mostly designed to cope with SCSI: U160 alone is capable of saturating the regular 2.1 PCI bus... if you have enough devices running through it. With PCI Express here already, I doubt you'll need to worry about PCI 2.2.

SinaiSound · 16 Mar 2006 at 17:20

iirc, the PCI-E bus is not entirely suited to soundcard design.

I remember reading an article about it somewhere.

Psypher5 · 16 Mar 2006 at 17:36

I read that they made graphics cards (on pci-e bus) do sound rather damn well

But yeah, pci wont be phased out totally for a good while yet. You'll have no compatability issues

CurlyWhirly · 16 Mar 2006 at 18:54

charltonfan1 said:
All X-Fi's use standard PCI connection. Motherboards will use PCI slots for the next few years to come until PCI-E replaces PCI completely

I only asked whether the standard PCI interface was being phased out as I was going by the fact that AGP is virtually dead and PCI Express hasn't been out that long.
Apparently this doesn't apply to sound cards, probably because they need much less bandwidth compared to graphics cards.

Psypher5 said:
You'll have no compatability issues

So I don't need to worry about the PCI 2.1 standard then?
Good news!

Psypher5 said:
But yeah, pci wont be phased out totally for a good while yet.

That's what I wanted to hear as I have read many favourable reviews of the X-Fi soundcard and now all I need to do is decide which one to buy :rolleyes:

Thanks to everyone who replied

TooNice · 17 Mar 2006 at 00:47

Hefner said:
iirc, the PCI-E bus is not entirely suited to soundcard design.

I read that too. But it was stated by a Creative non-technician (PR?) staff if I remember right. So I'd take it with a grain of salt.

Perhaps there are complications, but right now, it is mostly business

It doesn't make sense at this point to manufacter two models of the X-Fi when everyone has PCI, and not everyone has PCI-E. It's not even 50/50 yet.