PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series

by Creative

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 11 x 4 x 8 inches ; 3 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001BDPLJA
• Item model number: SB0886FCS
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #22 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Computer Components > Internal Sound Cards
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

The PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series sound card is the essential audio upgrade for the demanding gamer. You'll hear realistic EAX 5.0 sound effects with 3D positional audio that's so accurate you can locate opponents by sound - even over normal stereo headphones. With the X-Fi I/O drive you'll have front panel connections for your headphones, headset and other audio gear. Plus, get unbeatable performance in your games with hardware accelerated audio and X-RAM.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Superior Audio with good drivers. (Unlike integrated Audio chips), July 12, 2009

By 

Adam "Adam" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series (Personal Computers)

I just picked one of these up because I grew tired of waiting over a year and a half for the maker of my integrated audio chip, to supply a functioning driver. The SigmaTel / IDT chip on my Intel board was decent enough for playback but the drivers were so bad and lacked things like input monitoring, proper switching of recording inputs while in games for voice coms, etc. The drivers would crash and I would lose my mic. They were just horrible. BTW Sigmatel / IDT finally as of a month or so ago added input monitoring to their driver and it still doesnt work. Sigmatel/IDT's new driver also has a huge memory leak where the driver process will use up to 35% CPU. You have to kill the process then restart it to fix it everytime it happens. ENOUGH with Sigmtel /IDT. I cant stand them and That is why i bought a Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series card. (Yes the name is stupidly long)

I was worried because its branded with "Fatal1ty" gamer nonsense and I read some bad things about it online. Everyone seems to bash Creative these days and many are even praising integrated audio solutions such as Sigmatel/IDT and RealTek. Personally, I dont get it. Sigmatel/IDT's integrated products are terrible. Do not rely in integrated audio for quality drivers or quality audio. DO NOT buy into the myth that integrated audio has caught up to Audio Card quality. They havent. Once that chip is on the motherboard, the manufacturers seem to forget about supporting it.

Sound Blaster is just the opposite. I've owned Creative Labs cards since the original Sound Blaster. They have been the backbone of PC audio. This card is incredible. It has very little EMI noise. It has incredible sound quality, very nice high's mids, lows and its output levels are stronger than my peice of crap integrated audio chip which had terrible EMI noise, and terrible drivers. Basically my motherboards integrated audio was worthless and a year long headache.

THIS IS THE CARD TO GET. It cost a lot, but the drivers are solid. It functions as it should. It sounds incredible, and you can count on creative supporting it for many years to come.

DO NOT RELY ON INTEGRATED AUDIO CHIPS. Their drivers are pathetic. That is the lesson here. Do not fall for the misinformation out there. Integrated audio is fine for listening to things but they fail at doing even some of the most basic of audio tasks due to their poor driver support. Creative's X-FI Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series has superior sound quality and excellent driver support. That is what you should be demanding from manufacturers, and if you have to pay a premium for it... so be it. Its far better than waiting a year and a half like i did for Sigmatel/IDT to release a driver that worked 75% of the time.

BTW The breakout box that goes in the front of your case is very helpful. I recommend buying this one rather than the one without it. If you play games and use voice coms, get the drive bay inputs.

Again, I cant stress this enough. It is such a relief to not have to deal with my motherboard's integrated audio anymore. Do it right from the start. GET THIS CARD.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceeded my expections., December 29, 2008

By 

J. T. Pietrewicz (Deland,Fla.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series (Personal Computers)

I was blown away by the sound quality of this unit.It's a huge
improvement over the onboard realtek chip.Clarity and directional
positioning in games is amazing and music is vastly improved.
The cmss-3d with headphones does a great job with 5.1 simulation.
Also to note,installation on Vista was a breeze.I installed from
the disc and let auto update do the rest.The software is a bit
bloated but the bells and whistles are fun.You can also do a custom
install and select what you want.If you game or enjoy music you can't
go wrong.I highly recommend this card.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Expensive Sound Card makes for great listening, September 26, 2008

By 

Gil Knutson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series (Personal Computers)

I expected an improvement over my old Creative card. This one is head and shoulders beyond it. If you don't put the settings too crazy, and keep it more "level" it sounds very good on my relatively poor Altec Lansing headphones. Much more volume, so the headroom is reasonable; it still needs a good headphone amp if you want the best, though... but, it sounds believable.

It was expensive, yes, but so far from what I have heard in two weeks of listening, I will be able to have very good sound through a lot of motherboard upgrades with this card. The RCA inputs are an important, added feature for me, as is the volume control. I am glad I "bit the bullet".