Soundblaster card....which is better?

kskisser

Commendable
Feb 27, 2016
1
0
1,510
according to Best Buy tech....my SB XFI Titanium Fatal1ty card is better than the SB ZX series ....How can 12 year old tech be better than something that came out 8 years later? The titanium has 7.1 support with onboard ram? Is this true?
 
Newer does not always mean better, and going by what one person said is not always fact either.

If you already have the X-Fi model, there is no need at all to change it, it's a good sound card. Don't know if I'd call it better than the new ZX models though, but it's not worse enough that I'd bother changing it. I'd say they are pretty much equal, even with a good quality headset or speakers I don't think more than a handful of people would be able to tell any difference.

X-Fi can run 7.1 audio.
 
best buy techs tend to be trained monkeys so i'd take anything you hear from them with a huge grain of salt.

i would not say one is necessarily better than the other as it depends on what you want to do with them. the zx is better for headphone use and stereo audio given its superior amp and front channel dac while the xfi series may be better for analog 5.1/7.1 out. software support also is a concern and the zx is current.