New PCI Express Titanium X-Fi announced

Posted at: 5:23am 16th May 2008 by James Morris

Creative announces new PCI-E Titanium X-Fis, now with Dolby Digital encoding at long last

Creative took the UK/EU Qualifier of the Champion Gaming Series as its cue to launch a new version of its SoundBlaster X-Fi audio card. The Titanium Fatal1ty range sports native PCI Express, but with a few extra enhancements.

Most welcome is the ability to encode surround sound to Dolby Digital, for sending over S/PDIF to an external decoder. This is something that was sorely missed on earlier X-Fis – and was a major source of criticism. The Dolby Digital encoding is host-based (i.e. performed in software by your CPU), so a future free driver release will add DTS encoding as well. The Titanium is also compliant with Windows Vista’s Universal Audio Architecture, which replaces WDM audio drivers.

There will be two initial versions of the Titanium – the Fatal1ty Professional Series and the Fatal1ty Champion Series. The Professional version is the card on its own, whilst the Championship card comes with a new I/O drive bay. The box will fit in either a 3.5in or 5.25in bay, although the caddy for the latter also includes RCA line-in connections. Creative has completely redesigned this breakout box with the gamer in mind. All buttons are backlit, for easier use in a darkened room. The knobs are recessed, popping out when depressed, so they don’t fall foul of chassis doors. There are also discrete buttons for game mode, CMSS-3D, and the 24-bit Crystallizer. The headphone socket is now a minijack rather than 1/4in, recognising the usual connector on most gaming headphones.

The Titanium card itself has a few new features. Aside from optical I/O on the backplate for the Dolby Digital encoding, there are now four discrete stereo minijacks, for analog 7.1 surround output. The drivers allow you to associate an EXE with a profile, so the card will switch modes automatically as you load a particular game or application. For those with case windows, the cards are enticingly black, with full-length emission shields.

The Titanium X-Fi Fatal1ty Professional Series is already listed on Scan.co.uk for £99.98. The two new cards are just the beginning, too. Creative also plans further members of the Titanium range, some of which will put the focus back in the direction of more professionally-oriented audiophiles.