creative sound blaster x fi titanium fatal1ty pro

This header has more pins than usual, as this card is designed to be used with an optional I/O headunit that sits in a 5.25″ drive bay. The enclosed header on the left is for CDDA passthrough from an optical drive, and the bare header on the right handles front-panel connections. On the opposite side from the faceplate, we see the internal headers. This card has the ability to accept a full 5.1 digital audio stream and pass it through to the speakers, which is quite nice if you have a game console or blu-ray player that you want to use alongside the computer. Next to these are the two TOSLINK optical ports: one in and one out. Whether the jack behaves as a microphone or line-in jack is controlled in software. The usual complement of analog speaker jacks is present, though on this card the microphone and line-in jacks have been combined into a single “multi-in” jack. Turning the card on its side, we see the faceplate that will show up at the rear of your computer’s case when the card is installed. As has become the norm, no printed manual is included. With the packaging discarded, the contents of the box are pretty basic: the card itself, a driver and software disc, and a quick-start guide. Opening things up, we see the card itself front and center, wrapped in plastic and wedged into a cardboard insert to hold it in place. On the other side, we have a testimony from Mr. This is actually fairly useful, given the somewhat unusual layout of ports. On one side, we get a look at the card’s faceplate, with all the ports labeled by function. Good use of bullet lists and bounding boxes to keep things readable here, which is a plus.

On the back, we get the usual laundry list of features and logos. Right away, you know that this is a Sound Blaster card, it’s meant for gamers, and it’s endorsed by this “Fatal1ty” fellow. Creative have elected to go with an aggressive design here, though one that thankfully avoids the silly random CGI of many product packages.

Creative sound blaster x fi titanium fatal1ty pro