With X-Fi PCI Express interface

Creative pulled the lid off the X-Fi family’s first PCI Express-connected sound card at CES.

The X-Fi Xtreme Audio with PCIe x1 connector, which has only been presented for the time being, but is not yet in circulation, could be installed in all motherboards today. With this, on the one hand, we could take advantage of the single PCI Express concept, which mostly remains untouched, and on the other hand, it would not unnecessarily take away the already "dying" PCI.

X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCIe x1: with S / PDIF I / O - not available on PCI

This is also important because most current computers have 1, preferably 2, PCI connectors, one of which is usually occupied by the tuner card right away, so there is no space left for the sound card - forcing us to use the integrated solution - or other PCI This device no longer fits next to the sound generating device and TV receiver.

As X-Fi Xtreme Audio is the cheapest and most unpretentious version of the sound card family, it is easy to imagine that Creative will soon be making PCI Express-enabled versions of other X-Fi sound cards, representing itself in all price ranges with such a device. One thing is for sure: there would be a demand for it!

PCI X-Fi Xtreme Audio

The news related to the fact that in addition to the many already known or new Creative products, a so-called ExpressCard Edition was also presented at CES, the technological basis here was provided by X-Fi Xtreme Audio. As the name of the external sound card suggests: it can be connected to laptops via an ExpressCard slot.

X-Fi for Xtreme Audio notebooks

Unfortunately, we cannot provide further technical details, nor can we know anything specific about the distribution of sound cards, so the date of launch and the end-user price are not known either. We look forward to further developments.