Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card (70SB073A00000)

The sound from this card blows onboard audio away. I couldn't believe the difference when I first tried it. Music is clearer, video game sounds are crisper, and overall everything just sounds a hundred times better. There's no way to describe it in words; you really just need to listen for yourself. I've also found that my games run about 10 to 20 fps higher now that I'm not using onboard audio.

I've watched a few DVDs with the included PowerDVD program, and they sound just as good as games. The same thing happens with music, it's just better!

This card features an Intel HD Audio front panel connector (not compatible with the AC'97 audio connector) which is nice. It seems like very few cards offer it.

On the downside, installing the drivers and software is like pulling teeth. The software installation alone took longer on my computer than installing Supreme Commander (an 8 gig game), and required 3 reboots. Plus there's a driver updating utility that needs to be dealt with, and the ever-present "Register Me" notice.

The Creative software itself is a little bit unnecessary and the interface can be confusing. Instead of having all audio options built into one single program, Creative broke it up into many programs. To change options for Game Mode is one program, to change options for Entertainment Mode is another, to change general options is yet another program. The programs link to each other, but its still annoying.

Overall, I highly recommend this card. Games, movies, and music all sound fantastic on it.

(Side note: when installing the software, choose "Minimum Installation". The full install includes tons of stuff that you don't need.)

Excellent sound, way better than my onboard sound card which i was using before. Works great with vista, just make sure you use the drivers online.

For such a reasonable price, and ease of installation (to Vista-32, no less), this sound card is sensational. This is the best ROI I have ever experienced in a hardware product. Intuitive directions and the software installation wizard made the entire process clock in at about 30 minutes.

The sound improvement from motherboard to 5.1 is absolutely astounding!

This card simply does not perform to it's product specifications and marketing claims. This can mostly be attributed to the terrible sound drivers that cause a multitude of problems. Such problems include random sound distortions, popping, broken microphone input etc. Yes that's right this XtremeGamer sound card does not currently feature working support for microphones. Customer support is also rather terrible so no one on the support forums has received any support for these problems. Do yourself a favor and look towards the Auzentech or BlueGear range of sound cards, as they actually function.

I'm giving this item two stars since the majority of reviews have liked the product. However, I could not get the system to recognize the card in either of my two open PCI slots. Setup simply stated "no SB product detected" and immediately closed. Amazon only offers a refund on this type of product and not an exchange so there's no way to know it was a bad card or indicative of the line as a whole. Given the fair number of reviews citing compatibility issues I'd have to say this was most likely the cause.

The main problem with the board, though, is it's almost total lack of documentation. The only instructions including on the package is a basic quick start guide. No troubleshooting information whatsoever is provided out of the box. If you do have a problem, there's almost no way to even begin to know where to check. If there had a been more documentation, I would have spent more time working on the issue.

The setup program also could have offered additional options when it did not see the card. This is actually a rather silly oversight on Creative's behalf. Why would I put an SB disc into the machine and try to install drivers if I didn't actually have an SB product? The logical conclusion is that I did install the hardware but something is wrong. Rather than simply closing the setup program should provided suggestions or at least directed me to a troubleshooting guide.

Bottom line: it's a generally well reviewed card when it installs correctly. But you are taking a chance it won't work in your system.