Creative Labs SB1040 PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Sound Card

Other products by Creative Labs

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 2.3 x 7.8 inches ; 15.2 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000W7PNZI
• Item model number: 70SB104000000
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 20, 2007

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Your Movies and Music. Way Better.

Why settle for basic, built-in sound? Your music and movies deserve Xtreme Fidelity. Add the PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio sound card to your PC and turn your downloaded music into your own personal concert. Watch DVDs or downloaded videos with full cinematic surround sound. Plus experience 3D audio and EAX effects in games.

	Revitalize your downloaded music and movies Restore the details and vibrance your music and movies lost during compression. X-Fi technology intelligently enhances the highs and lows so you'll hear it all-crisp cymbal crashes, wailing guitar solos, screeching tires and booming explosions.
	Surround sound from your stereo music and movies? Yes! Expand your stereo music and movies into surround sound. Voices are centered in front of you. Ambient sound appears all around you... just like a live performance. Listen on a pair of desktop speakers or a full 5.1 speaker system.
	Hear headphone surround that sounds like multichannel speakers Slip on your headphones and X-Fi technology moves the sound away from your ears and into the space around you. You'll be surrounded by multiple virtual speakers and feel like you're sitting with your favorite band or in the best seat in the movie theater. Games sound better too with positional audio that's so accurate you can locate enemies by sound.
	Enjoy realistic sound effects in games Experience realistic sound effects and 3D surround that make you feel like you're actually in the game. Over 400 existing games use Creative EAX sound effects to provide better gaming sound.

And if you're using Windows Vista, Creative ALchemy restores surround sound for the same great gaming experience.

Enjoy the ultimate PC movie experience
Watch your DVDs in cinematic surround sound with PowerDVD software featuring DTS and Dolby Digital-EX decoding (free download with purchase).

Product Description

Why settle for basic, built-in sound? Your music and movies deserve Xtreme Fidelity. Add the Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio sound card to your PC and turn your downloaded music into your own personal concert. Plus watch DVDs or downloaded videos with full cinematic surround sound.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I had hoped for, May 27, 2008

By	D. Pham (SF, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I ordered this sound card for its digital output toslink and claimed compatibility with windows vista. However, this card did not live up to my expectations at all. I had wanted to hook up the sound card to play through my audio receiver and 7.1 speaker setup in the living room. What they fail to tell you, except in the fine print, is that the digital SPDIF outputs only output Dolby 5.1 sound when you are playing DVDs. Otherwise, if you are playing MP3's or other music files, it only outputs in stereo (and poor quality stereo at that). I then tried to go analog and connect the various output jacks to my receiver's inputs. The sound quality was awful.
So I sent the card back.

This is in stark contrast to the old Soundblaster Extigy which I purchased years ago. It was able to output surround sould (including CMSS) through the digital connection to my receiver and sounded great. The problem is that I had to upgrade to Vista and Creative abandoned the Extigy, deeming it "End of Life". I have since been unable to find a sound card which can provide its feature set for Vista.

Needless to say, I did not purchase another Soundblaster. I went with an alternative sound card with Dolby Digital Live output. It is still not as good as the Extigy because it doesn't provide CMSS, but it'll do for now.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars BUYER BEWARE, SB1040 / 70SB104000000 - NOT AN X-FI CHISET CARD, DECEPTIVE MARKETING, May 10, 2009

By	Anthony R. Richardson "BrokenBlaster" (70037) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Nice sound, optical in and out, cheap, BUT, as I later found out AFTER purchase, as I saw no disclaimer nor information indicating otherwise on any vendor sites nor the Creative Labs site, this is NOT a true X-FI chipset card, a cheap knock off branded as an X-FI.

It is my opinion this borders on deceptive marketing practices as an X-FI is an X-FI, and this is NOT an X-FI chipset card..

NOT AN X-FI CHIPSET CARD, BUYER BEWARE OF CREATIVE LABS

Creative Labs admitted to me this card is not an X-FI chipset card, and that it so-called "emulates" X-FI via software.

Yeah right, and if that is the case, a Ford Escort can "emulate" a LTD Crown Vic also...

SHAME ON YOU CREATIVE LABS.

My last purchae was an Audigy 2ZS Platinum Pro which was not cheap, and I fully expected more only to be VERY disappointed that I got a cheap knockoff of an X-FI card that was misrepresented.

Does anyone else feel as if they have been misrepresented by this card not having an X-FI chipset on it while being marketed/represented as an X-FI product line offering?

1.0 out of 5 stars BEWARE! A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME!, November 3, 2009

By	K. Hyder "techreader" (San Francisco Bay Area) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this card to take in digital audio from the TOSLINK port into a sound editing program. Although I could hear audio through the card, the Creative applications provided with the card (and the ones I downloaded from Creative's website) refused to find the card in the system. After hours and hours of frustration I decided to return this card. The replacement card I bought costs half as much and works well. Shame on your Creative Labs!

I bought this card and installed it with Windows 7. My motherboard has onboard audio and I disabled it from the BIOS. I continued to get "Can't Find Audio Device" Error when I ran Creative applications. I tried and tried so many things...
- installed the entire Creative driver/ application suite from CD
- installed just the Creative drivers first and then the application suite from CD
- installed from the Creative CD first and then let Windows 7 upgrade the Creative drivers
- installed from the Creative CD first and then upgraded drivers and applications from Creative's website
- tried the Daniel K package
- upgraded the motherboard BIOS and chipset drivers
- shut down, removed the sound card, booted up, then shut down, then re-inserted the card, then booted up again
- moved the card from one PCI Express slot to another

None of the above options could get me to a point where the Creative applications (e.g. Creative Diagnostics) could recognize the card in the system. I needed these applications to work in order to use the digital audio input (Toslink).

I could not get phone support. It either does not exist for this product or they keep it a secret.

I have been very disappointed with Creative Labs for this experience! I have used their products for 12+ years and I think the quality has gone down a lot recently. I have worked in the IT industry for 20 years; if I'm having so much trouble I wonder what non-technical users have to go through.

Shame on your Creative Labs! It's the last time I bought one of your products!