Auzentech X-Fi Forte Available Now

[safan80]

http://www.guru3d.com/news/auzentech...available-now/

click the link at the bottom for pics!

By Hilbert Hagedoorn, January 21, 2009 -

Santa Clara, CA — Auzentech, Inc., a provider of quality consumer electronics products, is pleased to announce the official release of the Auzen X-Fi™ Forte 7.1 soundcard.

The Auzen X-Fi™ Forte 7.1 is the first Low Profile native PCI Express® audio card that Auzentech has designed especially for gamers and audiophiles. Compared to the X-Fi™ chipset reference design, the Auzen X-Fi™ Forte 7.1 has improved circuitry and components. The Auzen X-Fi™ Forte 7.1 marks the first time the Creative X-Fi™ Native PCI Express chipset has been available in a low-profile board, as well as the first time it has been available in a a third-party soundcard.

* Low Profile Audio Card
* Developed around Creative X-Fi Native PCI Express audio processor
* Support for Dolby Digital Live for Windows XP and Vista
* Support for DTS Neo:PC & DTS Interactive for Vista
* Low-profile and standard-profile brackets included.

More info here.

I added my picture of the Forte vs the original creative X-fi FPS.

you guys might want to check the manual for the card take a look at page 6

HD Audio Front Panel
Connect Intel® HD Audio compliance Front panel cable, and can use Microphone input and
Headphone output. Can also be connected to the X-Fi I/O drive.

[IcY18]

How does this compare to the ASUS Xonar Essence STX, besides price $200 vs. $150 (Forte) ?

[safan80]

How does this compare to the ASUS Xonar Essence STX, besides price $200 vs. $150 (Forte) ?

I've read that the Xonar has some issues in games.. the biggest thing that I don't like about the Xonar the software doesn't auto switch between the headphones and speakers... there's also a lot of complaints on Asus' forums about the Xonar cards.

check out the Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD
http://www.auzentech.com/site/produc...theater_hd.php

edit: what's with the header on the card? SLI sound cards.

[IcY18]

Hmm, well the Essence is a new Xonar card so i'll hold judgement.

[safan80]

Hmm, well the Essence is a new Xonar card so i'll hold judgement.

it's bound to have lag like the other Xonar cards since it's still not native pci-e. I suggest you look at the asus forums and see how their drive support is going.

[rusty]

why would one buy creative ? Creative support is total sh...t on any level.

[Bojamijams]

For headphones and 2 channel speakers, the STX is king. Nobody can match its SnR and THD quality. Not to mention, it actually includes an EMI shield so the computer electical noise doesn't mess with your sound. Its also powered by a separate molex instead of a noisy pci-e bus. Which Auzentech (claimining to be audiophile, as if) still don't include on any of their cards (emi or clean molex power)

For 5.1, this would be better though I still wouldn't use it as an 'audiophile' card due to lack of EMI shield.

However I've come from the prelude and the that is creative drivers is still prevalent and an issue. After 2 hours of playing any games, my audiodg.exe (or something like that) would be at about 900mb of usage. It took them 3 months to finally acknowledge this is an issue. Of course they can't do anything until Creative does it. Well I got sick of waiting and moved to the STX. There is no number to quantify how much happier I am with the STX then the prelude.

And it has NO issues with any games I play.

[safan80]

why would one buy creative ? Creative support is total sh...t on any level.

3rd party driver support has grown since the Daniel_k incident. Daniel_K even returned and is doing driver releases again.

[Donnie27]

why would one buy creative ? Creative support is total sh...t on any level.

Auzen X-Fi™ Forte 7.1

Pro.
safan80 is right and YouP_Pax drivers work well as well. Asus Xonar is software based and will always cause lag or latency. See it as the CPU emulating a Sound Card LOL! Its pretty good for a HTPC sound card.

I've not needed Creative's support in a long time but when I did, I got it. I didn't get support from AMD, Intel, Asus, Gygabyte, IBM, Power Color, Seagate and a host of others. I'd not have a computer if I held screw ups or rip-offs against them all and boycotted=P.

Con
Costs too much.

[NaMcO]

Wow, card looks absolutely stunning! Hope it performs as it looks.

[Bojamijams]

Btw, quad cores (and dual cores at 3.8ghz+) have no issues emulating EAX (not that anyone is going to care about this in 6 months) through software as they're all very under-utilized in most games.

[IcY18]

I play a number of games(Crysis,TF2,COD5, L4D) but i also have a generous library of music. I listen to music every minute I'm on the computer.
I feel my situation is one typical of many computer enthusiasts, they enjoy both games and music, and it seems there hasn't been a soundcard, that seems like an obvious choice, that meets both these needs.
Either Auzentech's previous audiophile cards didn't support EAX, or Creative's gaming card couldn't match the audio quality of an audiophile card.
Besides BF2142, i'm unsure of the latest games that uses EAX, and having been using an X-Fi XtremeMusic for that last couple years i don't know what it sounds like with limited EAX support.

In the end it basically comes down to which card would serve me better, the Xonar Essence STX or this X-Fi Forte, unfortunately my budget for my build has busted its hold and a $50 difference doesn't mean much at this point.

[eXa]

Do eax even mean anything if u only use 2 channel speakers or headphones?

[Donnie27]

Btw, quad cores (and dual cores at 3.8ghz+) have no issues emulating EAX (not that anyone is going to care about this in 6 months) through software as they're all very under-utilized in most games.

It's not processor speed, it is the speed going to the processor and then back to the sound card through the PCI BUS. The PCI Bus is still lame. Then add Digital to Analog conversion. The PCI-E version adds another problem because it is not Native and has another translation step.

The real problem is Games and some say movies as well but I've not seen that first hand. I have played games with it and sorry, I'd use a Xonar for my HTPC but no ^%#$ing way in my rig where I play games.

EAX is NOT under-utilized and the CPU can't Emu anything above EAX2, no matter how many lies Asus tells. The CPU needs SOFTWARE EAX and even adds latency to OpenAL via the same problem mentioned above. The only folks who don't care are those who are oblivious to what they're missing

[Donnie27]

Do eax even mean anything if u only use 2 channel speakers or headphones?

EAX is KING for Games and Headphones because it offers the best Headphone support for games on the planet. CMSS3D can create realistic 5.1 using even cheap headphones. The better the cans, the more defined the the surround will be of course.

http://www.behardware.com/articles/5...labs-x-fi.html

In practice, the X-Fi CMSS 3D works fairly well, but it´s with headphones that we obtained the best results. It is quite frustrating when we have a surround sound card and speakers and are not to able to use them. But headphones often become the only solution late at night with loud action packed movies. This is the time when a good virtualisation algorithm is needed for the most natural surround sound possible. The CMSS 3D succeeds in this area and convinced us much more than the 24 bit Crystalizer.

Movement effects were rendered with many more nuances and we can clearly identify sounds moving from left to right, or diagonally. Height effects are also correctly rendered even if nuances aren’t as optimal as on the horizontal plane. For this point, Creative labs is one length ahead of SRS and Dolby algorithms, which are efficient but only for movies. The latter have large weaknesses in vertical rendering, however.

This works even better for Games!

[Donnie27]

I play a number of games(Crysis,TF2,COD5, L4D) but i also have a generous library of music. I listen to music every minute I'm on the computer.
I feel my situation is one typical of many computer enthusiasts, they enjoy both games and music, and it seems there hasn't been a soundcard, that seems like an obvious choice, that meets both these needs.
Either Auzentech's previous audiophile cards didn't support EAX, or Creative's gaming card couldn't match the audio quality of an audiophile card.
Besides BF2142, i'm unsure of the latest games that uses EAX, and having been using an X-Fi XtremeMusic for that last couple years i don't know what it sounds like with limited EAX support.

In the end it basically comes down to which card would serve me better, the Xonar Essence STX or this X-Fi Forte, unfortunately my budget for my build has busted its hold and a $50 difference doesn't mean much at this point.

Look for a Auzentech Prelude use the Creative DSP and supports EAX 4, DDL DTS, anything meaningful and works great Since their prices are now lower it becomes an even better option. EBay might be an option as well.

[cegras]

I use a DAC with a crossfeed.

[IcY18]

Look for a Auzentech Prelude use the Creative DSP and supports EAX 4, DDL DTS, anything meaningful and works great Since their prices are now lower it becomes an even better option. EBay might be an option as well.

This would be a better option than the Forte?

[tiro_uspsss]

edit: what's with the header on the card? SLI sound cards.

I want to know this to

[Donnie27]

I use a DAC with a crossfeed.

Which one, I've only read about them and have ZERO hands on.

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f5/dac...ssfeed-258303/

This would be a better option than the Forte?

No, just another alternative. I'd want the others for HDMI support but then you'd need some higher end audio equipment. Not using HDMI I (yes just me) can see little need for it yet! Key word is "yet".

Quote:

Originally Posted by safan80 View Post
edit: what's with the header on the card? SLI sound cards.

I want to know this to

Small one,
1 x 10-pin(5x2) Front audio header with Intel® HD Audio Compatible
Large one!
Creative proprietary AND_EXT, DID_EXE connector for X-Fi I/O driver

Similar to Creative I/O Drives. I think they're still not compatible.

http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-fi_forte.php
http://www.auzentech.com/site/produc...theater_hd.php

Find ROBSCIX, he's pretty good with this stuff

[safan80]

Small one,
1 x 10-pin(5x2) Front audio header with Intel® HD Audio Compatible
Large one!
Creative proprietary AND_EXT, DID_EXE connector for X-Fi I/O driver

I'm not referring to the two connectors in the back I'm talking about the header on the side.

[Xoulz]

*sigh*

One of the main reason I never got excited about Windows Vista was that is doesn't handle sound in games properly. I play Battlefield 2142 with a THX 5.1 sound system and creative platinum under Windows XP... it's is incredible.

My co-workers and friends always comment on how different the game seems when they watch me play.



So, will Windows 7 change this? Will it natively try to run the sound, or will the sound cards API do it../




.

[IcY18]

Does this card have the ability to pass sound to HDMI video cards?

[cegras]

I'm using a headroom total bithead (sig). I got it quite cheap, well below MSRP, so it's a steal for me.

I've never put a lot of stock into positional audio, but with the crossfeed on and when I turn around and look, positional audio surprisingly works out quite well.

[metachronos]

I noticed that those Auzen cards have headers so you can connect the audio ports on the front of the case to the cards. Do any X-Fi's have this option?