this project is supposed to have ended two weeks ago but recently decided the sound was not up to par. alot of background hissing and clicking from the system. dont know where the circut is dirty with static. anyway, looked around and got a Creative x-fi Extreme Gamer for $105, the usual price is $145. still on warranty till end of this year, i.e. 4 months old. the previous owner swtiching over to the new Asus dx card. pics here.
the box is a real mouse trap. the way the card and the extra items are arranged is really cramped and strange.
the stuff that came along with teh card. nothing much but drivers.
only half card tall. more punch in a smaller pack. no gold connectors but i doubt you'll hear a diff.
the cirrus chip. thats what gives the 7.1 surround sound.
the x-fi chip thats under the heat sink. a review online tried to pry away the heatsink to look at the chip but it was too well glued to the chip. anyway, really shoddy lapping of the chip IMHO, just look at the it, the corners of the chip are not under the thermal paste. crappy.
the other bugbear of the card is the super slow installation time. waited a good 5 minutes for the drivers to be installed. then after that updated them but had to uninstall first before downloading (which took like 30+ minutes) then going through the slow install process again.
but after that was done, the 3D rendering was really good. i'm a headphones person (mainly because there are always others around me so cant make much of a noise) so the 3D emulation on headphones was really superb. the clarity was also top notch. one of the tracks had a big thud in the beginning of the track and i instinctively turned to my left to see who droped something on the floor. my music is more 'in your face', crisp and clear. the bass i have yet to tweak but so far so good.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
