^ Any thoughts? I'm close to wanting to ditch my Creative Titanium HD. Driver support for Windows or anything in general from Creative, Asus, etc. is kind of terrible. MEANWHILE, my RealTek HD audio drivers are updated regularly. Kind of strange-right? For hardcore gaming I'm usually using my Logitech G930 anyway, which bypasses the sound card. Not sure how much of a FPS hit it is to use on-board sound (if any at all). My setup is pretty solid, running @ 4.4Ghz right now with the GTX 780s in SLI.
I have this nit-picky pet-peeve about ****ty capacitors. So the Z is out of the question. I'm considering the ZX, though, since it has the those nice gold caps. One thing that kind of baffles me is that the Z has the highest SNR...124 vs. the ZX and ZXRs 118. Awkward.
The Z and ZX are the same card. Difference is the ZX comes with an external headphone module/controller.
Not true. The Z uses a Cirrus Logic DAC vs The Burr-Brown on the ZX and ZXR. Also, the Z uses standard caps and the ZX uses Nippon golds. I can see when holding the boxes the different caps, you can also see here.
That would be incorrect. http://www.soundblaster.com/products/sound-blaster-zx.aspx#specs Check the specifications and then compare to the Z. The cards are identical outside of the break out box and the capacitors used. In fact, some of the earlier Z's had the better caps. Also, the SNR on both the Z and ZX is 116 vs 124 on the ZxR. That said, unless you plan on upgrading to a decent pair of headphones or speakers there's not much point in upgrading to a better soundcard.
That's a strange link for Creative. A week ago they had a 3 card comparison chart that said differently. I have had both cards in my hands, I assure you the caps are not the same. They're all black on the Z and gold on the ZX and ZXR.
Beat me to it. Also both cards have had at various points of shipping/manufacture slightly different caps, some gold plated, others not, but not sure if quality differed. The cards are considered the same by creative and the zx has only the control module added to the packaging.
There was a long discussion of this in the Creative SB Z thread in the sound section, nothing was proven re the quality of the gold vs non-gold caps. Both cards at various points shipped with the different caps between them, ie, both models shared the same caps, gold and non-gold at various points in time.
As I said, early versions of the Z used different caps. The site link is an official website for Creative products and is correlated by pretty much every legitimate review of the cards on the internet. If you want further assurances you could always try getting this moved to the audio section of the forum? Exactly. In fact, there were issues with the breakout box causing a degredation of sound quality on the Zx and ZxR when used for volume control. I'm not sure if that has been fixed or not yet. The Zx is simply not worth the premium for a breakout box, especially one that doesn't function correctly. Either get the Z or the ZxR imo.
This is really weird. I'm going to buy all 3 off Amazon to get to the bottom of it. I can easily just return with no hassles. I'm weary of Creative products...but I have been using them for ages. They're like EA, they make stuff and don't support it very well. I do use my headset a lot more these days so maybe I don't need a sound card at all anymore. I do like the premium sound though for music and when I do game without headphones. #1stWorldProblems
I've checked all the other Creative websites that I can think of, and they all list the same specifications as shown on that site. In fact, I've never seen anywhere list any different. You sure you're not remembering a dodgy review? I'd also recommend investing in a decent pair of headphones if you do upgrade. One of the major selling points of these cards is the included headphone amp, so that opens a lot of doors that were probably shut for you before. I've used a lot of gaming headsets and can honestly say I will never go back. It's a general consensus amongst most of the audio enthusiasts on this forum.
I received the specs from a Creative rep when I was inquiring about 8.1 driver support, but it was a link to a page that's 404 now.
