Auzentech X-Fi Forte 7.1 Review

[crispex]

Not precisely a soundcard's memory, no.

It would simply help with taking a bit of a load off of the rest of your hardware, leaving them to work on showing you the more important things, like that nuke that just went -

[NightRain]

Originally Posted by aenagy

1) Is more memory (referring to comment about X-RAM) really need for games (Crysis, etc)?
2) Any word on if the D-sub cable will be sold separately for spares?

1) X-RAM provides a benefit only in software that supports it, if a game doesn't support X-RAM then it is just as well your card doesn't have it. This is why I listed it as a con. Right now the only software I know supports it is Doom 3, Quake 4, Battlefield 2, Prey, UT2003, UT2004, and F.E.A.R.. However, I've heard the anything using OpenAL supports use of X-RAM but gains are minimal and vary from game to game. Some OpenAL games include: Bioshock, Gears of War, GRID, Mass Effect, STALKER and STALKER Clear Sky, Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter, and America's Army. These games should at least recognize and make use of the X-RAM but really won't provide much of an advantage.
2) Knowing Auzentech if you needed a replacement cable they would provide you with one, maybe even free of charge. They have great support.

I will say I continue to LOVE this card and it is easily one of the best components in my PC. Creative's ALchemy works excellent as well.

[Robscix]

Many seem to understand that ANY game has to be specifically programmed for it but as it turns out if the game is based around the OpenAL API any audio buffers are automatically sent through the X-RAM. This means that X-RAM automatically accelerates OpenAL games without extra coding in the games audio engine.
How much X-Ram actually acclerates the audio has not been heavily tested.
I am pretty sure if the game uses the Direct sound API, then the designers need to add coding for X-RAM usage.

[aenagy]

Originally Posted by NightRain

2) Knowing Auzentech if you needed a replacement cable they would provide you with one, maybe even free of charge. They have great support.

I asked Auzentech about getting spare cables. Here's what they said:

To: aenagy@....
Subject: Re : Spare Analog I/O Cable for X-Fi Forte 7.1
From: donotreply@auzentech.com
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:26:42 -0700


Please do not reply to this email

Ticket Subject: Spare Analog I/O Cable for X-Fi Forte 7.1

. . . . . . . . . .

Here is the last response to your ticket:

Dear Andrew,

Thank you for contacting Auzentech.

One Analog I/O is included in the package. If you purchase the X-Fi Forte 7.1 directly from 'Auzen Online Store', we will put one more Analog I/O cable specially for you.

We apprecaite your support and kind interest in our product line.

Sincerely,

. . . . . . . . . .

If you need to reply to our response, please follow the below link
Auzentech.com

You will need to use the key listed below to access your ticket.
Ticket Key : 39281983

Sincerely,
Auzentech.com

[Empty_Quarter]

When I purchased my Forte a few days ago, it came with the standard sized slot, and no changing was necessary. It seems they realized that the low profile crowd wasn't sufficient enough to justify them shipping it with the low profile slots.

[aboutblank]

A little late to the party it seems. Nevertheless i've purchased a xfi forte as well since ncix had it on for 109.99. Pretty good deal, there's a $10 rebate but i don't really look forward to those. It's sold out as of right now; shame for those who missed out.

Long story short, my impression has been positive. I'm a Tower of Power fan and when i tried a few songs to compare, it's so crisp and clear so i'm shocked as to how much of a difference it made, and that we're talking about mp3s here.

I previously had a creative xfi xtrememusic. I'm not really sure where i stand on the whole crystalizer debate. Remember the days of that wow-srs plugin for winamp? It's like that, but now it's hardware based. CMSS i can assure you can do without. It seems to 'push' your speakers further away from you, best as i can describe it.

I remember reading somewhere that the card is long? It's the same length as my xtrememusic and shorter than my 8800GT, and i have no issues on my Gigabyte MA78GM-S2H, 780G model.

*edit* I have the Logitech Z5500 speakers.

[Snarl]

Just got my Forte, replaces on board sound in my Asus P5Q Motherboard. I really like the digital out and the Toslink adapter was much appreciated. It works awesome with my Edirol MA15D speaker (2.0 system) I bought these as they took a digital Toslink input. I'm also really also liking the sound on my Head Phones (Sennhieser PC350). I'm still learning how to use the software and tweaking the sound however so far I'm very happy, kind of like the best of both worlds i.e. Creative chipset, someone else's drivers :)

Mine also came installed with the standard (Larger) sized bracket

[alexroland]

My forte also came installed with the standard sized bracket.
the sound card really runs quite hot, so I just put some heatsinks on it, but overall I love this forte :)

[Babrbarossa]

Great review- thanks! I don't mind the dongle- easier to see where you're plugging things behind the case- especially with a 5.1 set of gaming headphones.

[ToXic]

just got one of these to replace a old PCI Fatal1ty Champion (slot was going to interfere with future SLI), now my only problem is the mini PCI-E for that type of card is hidden under a 4870 x2 heatsink, so i had to put it at the bottom PCI-E so it wouldn't touch my future SLI combo.

Must say its a great card! the driver install from the website was a little hard to get going at first but sure enough it works!

One thing i noticed different is mine came with the standard bracket installed and the low profile in a little baggy.

Good card for the price! very good on a logitech G51 setup!

I got mine free as a replacement for the Fatal1ty having one broken rear port (just found out yesterday when testing it) it costs about the same as the Fatal1ty did at the time, and they were nice enough to give me a PCI-E card instead of PCI.