Crikey, the gamer's X-Fi is pricey!

How would you spend $200+ to enhance gameplay?

  • GPU/CPU/RAM bump ("traditional" speed boost)

    Votes: 43 52.4%
  • PPU (Ageia PhysX)

    Votes: 21 25.6%
  • "APU" (Creative X-Fi)

    Votes: 6 7.3%
  • Thank you, come again! --Apu (Sorry, couldn't help it)

    Votes: 12 14.6%

  • Total voters
    82
Does anyone have a bigger image of the card? From Dave's image it looks like it uses 4 stereo DAC (or are they ADC?) instead of an integrated codec. The Audigy 4 card uses the best DAC from Cirrus Logic, perhaps the highest end of X-Fi also uses the same DAC? Although using the same DAC as EMU 1212M does not make Audigy 4 sounds as good as 1212M, it does provide better sounds than Audigy 2 ZS.
 
Just a thought

It's interesting to see that 16 persons voted for the PPU (Ageia PhysX) option, when there's no realworld benchmark, yet, and no evidence that the PPU hardware will be supported, to it fullest extend, by a lot of developers, neither.

Are people really believing that game developer will start to work on gameplay designs that revolve extensively around PPU, supposed, capabilities? And therefore make their game almost unplayable on configs without PPUs?

Or do people think the fact that the PPU alleviates some work from the CPU will make games runs faster enough to warrant the purchase of this fixed function card in place of a, let's say a Dual-Cores CPU, which can be usefull for physhic... and everything else too...

...While I could understand someone telling that he wants a PPU in addition to other high-end parts (CPU+ GPU) for its config, I cannot, on the other hand, understand, why this person would take a fixed function PPU over a better CPU/GPU/RAM upgrade...

And this is assuming that the Ageia PPU is really usefull in realworld applications, something that still has to be proven.

In anycase my hat goes off to their marketing plan. They successfully implented the idea of a PPU in the core market's, the enthusiast segment, mind.
 
Both offcourse. Btw, from a gaming point will the extra 64 mb ed ram be usefull? apart from the viewpoint edram is hot!
 
Vysez said:
It's interesting to see that 16 persons voted for the PPU (Ageia PhysX) option, when there's no realworld benchmark, yet, and no evidence that the PPU hardware will be supported, to it fullest extend, by a lot of developers, neither.

The poll doesn't mention a timeline for the purchase. As some one who voted for a PPU I can say my vote assumes independent benchmarks and sufficient developer support.

Are people really believing that game developer will start to work on gameplay designs that revolve extensively around PPU, supposed, capabilities? And therefore make their game almost unplayable on configs without PPUs?

Not if the PhysX PC card is the only PPU for a while. They're probably just going to accelerate the physics implementations and perhaps scale the number of actors in a scene a tad if a PPU is detected for. I.e. not a significant benefit.

Or do people think the fact that the PPU alleviates some work from the CPU will make games runs faster enough to warrant the purchase of this fixed function card in place of a, let's say a Dual-Cores CPU, which can be usefull for physhic... and everything else too...

I have my doubt a PPU will significantly reduce CPU boundness exactly because when a PPU is detected for developers will try to scale up the physics requiring the CPU to hand-feed the PPU.
 
Vy, I'd also imagine that ppl who voted for the PPU thought of this as a bonus or unnecessary expenditure for which they'd want immediate results. A PPU will give you just that (in how many games is the question). An APU will probably require an additional expenditure on 5.1 or 7.1 speakers or a nice pair of headphones, so even more money for probably less effect (in this 3D-centric forum). As long as they're throwing money away, they figure, they might as well get more for it.

But, yeah, multiple cores sound handier compared to specialized units, especially if the Xbox360 and PS3 force devs to multithread.
 
We'll see what other OEM's eventually offer with this chip. I'm dissapointed that the cheapest model doesn't support EAX 5.0 though.

Still, I'm glad one company is still persuing DSP-based audio. Intel's new audio is nice, but it's a massive GPU hog.
 
Dave Baumann said:
Notice the little 4 pronged connector on the back - does that look like a floppy power connector to anyone? If so, are they using it because they need it, or are just looking for a "cleaner" power source than the PCI bus.
The chip has neither a heatsink nor sufficient space / mounting holes around it - I don't know about the exact specs for the PCI bus, but surely it could handle more power than what can be safely dissipated by a lowly PBGA chip alone, no?
 
The power connector COULD have been to supply bus power for a firewire port, but the thing completely lacks firewire ports, so that's not an option... Very curious. It might be something that won't appear on final production cards.
 
It's probably for the external box. The Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro (with an extrenal box) also has an additional power supply connector.
 
No one ever said the cheapest version wouldn't support EAX 5.0. It just won't have 64MB onboard RAM. Anyway, it seems to me that explicit developer support will be needed to use the onboard RAM. I can't conceive of a mechanism that would allow it to be used transparently, although perhaps my knowledge of how the APIs work is lacking...
 
_xxx_ said:
Who told you such nonsense? You don't need an amp.

BD phones produce a rather natural sound, which won't give you the artificial booming bass some people like. Try before buying.

If you're looking for high-quality phones for half the price of that one above, try Sennheiser.

for good bass, grado SR-80. my senns' bass is pretty shallow. grados are cheap and delicious. unfortunately you will have to live with open-phone design, so ppl will hear your late-night pr0nning! ;0
 
I have some BD and Sennheiser studio phones for ~$200 each and they both sound great. But BD reproduce the material "as is" without changing the tonal characteristic, which is a good thing for me when I record stuff. What I meant is that this kind of sound is nothing a normal consumer will like since it doesn't create that "lots of artificial bass and treble and no mids" kind of sound that most people seem to like. I don't like overly excessive bass or highs, I need enough midrange and clear basses/highs, not the "boom, boom, hiss" crap which makes me wanna cut off my ears...

EDIT:
Just went through my inventory, I got no less than 7 pairs of phones, some ~$600 total. I'm officialy crazy! But than, I'm a musician and actually use all of them for different stuff. Still, my wallet bleeds...
 
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poopypoo said:
for good bass, grado SR-80. my senns' bass is pretty shallow. grados are cheap and delicious. unfortunately you will have to live with open-phone design, so ppl will hear your late-night pr0nning! ;0
I have the 20 doller(few years ago) hd-437s and they have nice bass.. all they down to 20hz :D (test tone generator).
Not overbearing like my logitech z5300, just nice and deep, nice highs too.
I'm surprised how more detail (like flaws) you can hear in recordings with them.
Not bad for 20 bucks, I wonder how the 50+ phones sound.
Btw, I hate closed phone design, open air for life:D
All the cloned phone I've heard have poor highs and the sound stage is rather bad.
All the major name brand open air designs have all had the same wonderfull sound to my ears.
Of course I don't need to block out outside sound nor block out what I'm hearing.
 
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thomase said:
No one ever said the cheapest version wouldn't support EAX 5.0. It just won't have 64MB onboard RAM. Anyway, it seems to me that explicit developer support will be needed to use the onboard RAM. I can't conceive of a mechanism that would allow it to be used transparently, although perhaps my knowledge of how the APIs work is lacking...
well the audigy has been on the market for wht 4 years ? The lvie another 3 years before that ? So i don't see this one dieing anywhere before 2008 . Most likely by late next year they will start developing games with it in mind
 
Audigy 2 ZS has been around since Fall '03, Audigy 2 from 2002, Audigy 2001, Live '98. I'd say my A2ZS is supported in most games. I see EAX HD in FEAR for example. It's really pretty well supported and it does sound good.
 
swaaye said:
Audigy 2 ZS has been around since Fall '03, Audigy 2 from 2002, Audigy 2001, Live '98. I'd say my A2ZS is supported in most games. I see EAX HD in FEAR for example. It's really pretty well supported and it does sound good.

that is my point . This card will most likely be on the market for 4+ years . Heck they are still selling live . So i see no reason why its features wont get support. LIke a gpu it will most likely take a year or so but sound balster cards are basicly the defacto standard now
 
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