PCI XFI vs PCIE?

ALXAndy · 19 Dec 2013 at 12:05

Hi all. So basically I have this card, boxed and in absolutely pristine condition.

It's a XFI Falta1ty FPS. It comes with the IO box etc. I bought it for £24 a while back and used it very briefly before changing motherboards. I was wondering what, if any, the difference is between this PCI XFI and the latest, greatest PCIE ones?

Basically my motherboard has no PCI. However I'm weighing up getting one of these -

http://linitx.com/product/pcie-x1-to-pci-adapter-9cm-cable/13204

But am wondering if it's worth it (IE - would it be worth spending £30 on a PCIE card?). From what I can tell my XFI is pretty much the same (Xram and all) as the more modern cards but I'm no expert with sound cards. What I do know is that when I used it it sounded amazing.

melmac · 19 Dec 2013 at 12:57

Well, I have both the Creative Z and the X-fi Fatality. They are both really good.

But, if you use headphones a lot the Z is better. Also the drivers for the Z are way better. Now I didn't have any problems with the drivers on my Fatality but, I am not too sure how good they will be going forward.

I suppose I should ask what £30 card are you thinking of getting? Because the Fatality is better then the Xonar DG.

To be honest, if you found the Fatality amazing you should probably just keep it as no card in the £30 range is better. I would only upgrade to the Z or higher.

ALXAndy · 19 Dec 2013 at 13:46

I was thinking of getting a used XFI PCIE.

I'm running Windows 8 and I did have it set up once when I got it. I got some issues with cracking and popping, but then I installed the Daniel K driver and finally realised the popping and cracking were due to clipping, because the card has some sort of db gain function that was being set way too high at default. I just went into the Creative control panel and reduced the gain to 60% (it's set to 100% out of the box) and all was well.

Thing is I did have a XFI PCIE but at the time I didn't realise I had no room for it due to my OCZ Revodrive..

I guess what I wanted to know was do the PCIE more modern ones do anything that the PCI don't. Having looked around I can see that they're both 24 bit with a 94khz and the Xram makes them far more expensive (IE the basic Titanium XFI vs the XFI Titanium HD for example).

It seems mine has it all. I love the IO box and remote too, so I think going PCIE would actually be a down grade. I think I'll give the PCIE to PCI adapter a go. If it's problematic I can return it.

synixx · 19 Dec 2013 at 14:11

That card is similar in specs to all the other older x-fi cards (xtreme music, gamer and pci-e titanium) but is not nearly as good as the x-fi titanium HD. THe newer cards use a different chipset - the soundcore 3d or something. The Soundblaster Z is apparently better than all the old x-fi range so that's what i'd go for. Also, X RAM made barely any difference back in the day so i'd be surprised if it makes any difference nowadays.

ALXAndy · 21 Dec 2013 at 11:19

synixx said:
That card is similar in specs to all the other older x-fi cards (xtreme music, gamer and pci-e titanium) but is not nearly as good as the x-fi titanium HD. THe newer cards use a different chipset - the soundcore 3d or something. The Soundblaster Z is apparently better than all the old x-fi range so that's what i'd go for. Also, X RAM made barely any difference back in the day so i'd be surprised if it makes any difference nowadays.

The Xram thing was more for Windows XP tbh when hardware accelerated sound still existed.

I had a long hard think about it and decided that the sound quality was more than I could need, so I ordered the PCIE to PCI adapter and started to fit the sound card and cables ETC.

So with any luck in a few days I should have it up and running