USB XFi VS PCI Soundblaster Audigy SE

[Ben Rogers]

Hi,

I have a USB Xfi soundcard that I use most of the time whilst my PC has an internal PCI Audigy SE that is disabled.

Do you think the Xfi uses a lot more resources such as CPU time than the PCI?

There doesn't seem to be much in it sound quality wise however.

Which one would you use?

Thanks

[TooNice]

I find that USB card can slow down in games in some situations, but if you are not experiencing it, then I think that the X-Fi (provided the USB version is similar to the PCI version) is a much better than the Audigy SE (which is not even a true Audigy).

[Ben Rogers]

I don't play any games sadly but it seems fine generally.

The XFi has cmss-3d and EQ etc, I use headphones but it was set to headphones in the options and I set it to 2 channel and it sounds much better now. I will test out the Audigy SE tomorrow for the sake of it. The PCI card sound quality is pretty good tbh for the price I paid, which was about £15 a long time ago.

The problem I have with the XFi is that when I change any equaliser setting in the 'console launcher' app it stops working and I have to close it, everytime.

Probably down to good old Vista though.

[Uriel]

CMSS-3D Headphone on the USB 'X-Fi's (and any other 'X-Fi' that doesn't have a EMU20k1 or EMU20k2 chip) is dreadful. It's practically false advertising trying to cash in on the full X-Fis by giving these things the same name.

CMSS-3D Headphone mode of full spec pci-e and pci X-Fis is pretty decent. I wouldn't use it for music but it's very good indeed for games.

[Ben Rogers]

I only listen to mp3s so the sound is only as good as the source so doesn't make odds what soundcard really lol..

its hooked upto an 80watt denon amp and seinheisser headphones