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| |  | Gaming | Home » » » Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI Express | | | | | | | Description: | | Your Movies and Music. Way Better.
Why settle for basic, built-in sound? Your music and movies deserve Xtreme Fidelity. Add the PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio sound card to your PC and turn your downloaded music into your own personal concert. Watch DVDs or downloaded videos with full cinematic surround sound. Plus experience 3D audio and EAX effects in games.  | Revitalize your downloaded music and movies
Restore the details and vibrance your music and movies lost during compression. X-Fi technology intelligently enhances the highs and lows so you'll hear it all-crisp cymbal crashes, wailing guitar solos, screeching tires and booming explosions. |  | Surround sound from your stereo music and movies? Yes!
Expand your stereo music and movies into surround sound. Voices are centered in front of you. Ambient sound appears all around you... just like a live performance. Listen on a pair of desktop speakers or a full 5.1 speaker system. |
Hear headphone surround that sounds like multichannel speakers
Slip on your headphones and X-Fi technology moves the sound away from your ears and into the space around you. You'll be surrounded by nine virtual speakers and feel like you're sitting with your favorite band or in the best seat in the movie theater. Games sound better too with positional audio that's so accurate you can locate enemies by sound.
Enjoy Realistic sound effects in games
Bullets whiz past your head. Explosions shake the room. Take your games to the next level with EAX® ADVANCED HD™ sound effects.
 And if you're using Windows Vista™, Creative ALchemy restores surround sound for the same great gaming experience.
Experience cinematic surround sound from DVD movies
Watch your DVDs in cinematic surround sound with PowerDVD software featuring DTS™ and Dolby Digital® -EX decoding (free download with purchase).
Which Sound Blaster is right for you?
Compare them all to find the Creative Sound Blaster that best suits your needs.
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 8.0 inches | | Product Width:
| 2.5 inches | | Product Height:
| 11.0 inches | | Product Weight:
| 1.0 pounds | | Package Length:
| 11.2 inches | | Package Width:
| 7.13 inches | | Package Height:
| 2.5 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.96 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 10 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
 Creative Labs SB1040 PCI Audio CardJan 24, 2010
Poor Manual, had trouble setting it up. After hours of trial and error it works fine. I wish you could switch from 2 speaker system to optical output system without having to unplug from back of card each time you want to switch. Program software is poor and limited.
 BEWARE! A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME!Nov 04, 2009
I bought this card to take in digital audio from the TOSLINK port into a sound editing program. Although I could hear audio through the card, the Creative applications provided with the card (and the ones I downloaded from Creative's website) refused to find the card in the system. After hours and hours of frustration I decided to return this card. The replacement card I bought costs half as much and works well. Shame on your Creative Labs!
I bought this card and installed it with Windows 7. My motherboard has onboard audio and I disabled it from the BIOS. I continued to get "Can't Find Audio Device" Error when I ran Creative applications. I tried and tried so many things...
- installed the entire Creative driver/ application suite from CD
- installed just the Creative drivers first and then the application suite from CD
- installed from the Creative CD first and then let Windows 7 upgrade the Creative drivers
- installed from the Creative CD first and then upgraded drivers and applications from Creative's website
- tried the Daniel K package
- upgraded the motherboard BIOS and chipset drivers
- shut down, removed the sound card, booted up, then shut down, then re-inserted the card, then booted up again
- moved the card from one PCI Express slot to another
None of the above options could get me to a point where the Creative applications (e.g. Creative Diagnostics) could recognize the card in the system. I needed these applications to work in order to use the digital audio input (Toslink).
I could not get phone support. It either does not exist for this product or they keep it a secret.
I have been very disappointed with Creative Labs for this experience! I have used their products for 12+ years and I think the quality has gone down a lot recently. I have worked in the IT industry for 20 years; if I'm having so much trouble I wonder what non-technical users have to go through.
Shame on your Creative Labs! It's the last time I bought one of your products!
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Terrific sound and excellent valueOct 11, 2009
I purchased the PCI-e version of this card about a month ago when the built-in audio circuitry on my motherboard quit working. Sure wish I had done this sooner! Even though I had high-end sound on a top-of-the-line motherboard, the Soundblaster X-Fi Extreme Audio Card was better - by several orders of magnitude. It was easy to install and configure. It did take some time, after loading its software, to download updates from the Internet. But, that will happen with any card. Frankly, I was happy it did it automatically as I hate hunting for drivers. Anyway, it has some nice config software although you may find, as I did, that it works just fine out of the box. I run a relatively inexpensive set of computer speakers with combined subwoofer -- nothing fancy -- and the sound is amazing. Much better than before. I now use this PC as a Windows Media Center PC, watching and recording TV, movies, pictures -- you name it -- in the Family Room. This card really rounds out the experience. I paid around $50 for the card on Amazon. I consider it a great value. There's a reason why Creative Labs is still cranking out these boards even though motherboard manufacturers build audio in: the sound is BETTER! Upgrade from your motherboard card and hear the difference!
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
I am sorry but it is not much better than wht came with this mother boardOct 05, 2009
it really inn't any better than what was supplied with the onboard sound and a macrophone doesn't work on it
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Great Card...Great Software (minimal instructions or tech support).Aug 17, 2009
I purchased the Creative Labs SB1040 PCI Express Sound Blaster Xtreme Audio sound card to replace the built-in sound on my Windows Vista computer's motherboard. I needed more power and more 'line out' sockets. I found that this card satisfied both needs excellently. I installed the software to see if it was as 'ho hum' and problematic as some other reviewers had written. I found the software to be outstanding and allows you to really tailor the sound of your system. The only truly lacking part of the package was the instructions on using the software (especially the "Entertainment Mode"). It took me a few days to figure out how to get normal output to all line out sockets instead of the default 7.1 output. I literally stumbled across the screen that allows you to make that configuration change while looking for something else. You pretty much have to figure out what each feature does by experimentation before you can truly make use of them. Once you gain an understanding of how things work you'll find that you can get tremendous performance from this sound card. I must say that more in-depth instructions are available at the Creative Labs web site and you can download a file that contains help and instructions from that site. Live technical support, however, is non existent.
I would normally have reduced the score of my review due to the less than adequate instructional material and no technical support (beyond web site FAQs), but my review is really of the sound card hardware and software. They are both great!
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