Customer Ratings & Reviews

This card has beefed up my speakers to a point where I did not realize they could go. Games sound really good, gun clicking, swimming sounds and truck engines are really clear. I can even differentiate a diesel sound from a gas engine. (Most of the games I play are automotive based). Included directions are sketchy and leave lots of room for "guess and see", but once I found the right fit for my rig I was pleased indeed.

This sound card works really well and far achieves expectations and totally blows your on board sound out of the water.

A must have! Has great sound! If you are into gaming or into music, you must purchase this sound card!

The new computer didn't have a subwoofer input.This took care of that. Sound quality is excellent.

I'll admit, I did not walk into Best Buy with an intention of buying a dedicated sound card, which is an upgrade given my current gaming rig at that point. I will point out immediately, that if you are a USB gaming headset person, maybe this sound card is not for you, for the following reasons: -This sound card's voice modulation abilities do NOT utilize an USB mic! -This sound card's sound output does NOT play directly to your USB headset unless you utilize the option to play this sound card's effects through (in the case of having an Astro USB headset, A50) an optical outlet plugged into your USB routing device! With these two above points mentioned however, if you are using a standard 3.5 mm jack size sound output and mic input for your current headset (or speaker system), Creative Labs have delivered a phenomenal product. It's easy to install, & in short, I'd definitely buy it again!

Great way to handle your As both a gamer and audio enthusiast, I have always chosen a sound card over an integrated audio chip for two reasons. 1) A decent sound card generally features higher quality DACs (Digital audio converters) and Amps than an integrated solution, allowing for cleaner, richer, more accurate sound. 2) Hardware DSPs (Digital Signal Processors) provided mixing capabilities that offloaded mixing tasks from the CPU. This allowed for hardware accelerated 3D positional audio in games where all audio effects were processed directly on the card. This was particularly important in the early days of gaming when CPU cycles were at a premium. Unfortunately the advantages of such cards aren't nearly as clear today. Microsoft eliminated hardware accelerated audio from its audio stack in Windows Vista and it's been that way since. As such, most applications (including games and the OS itself) perform all mixing in software by default. Although it is still possible to bypass the Windows mixer and send audio data directly to the soundcard to be processed, only the most audio conscious applications can do this. So is there any reason to purchase a dedicated sound card in today's day and age? And if you're an existing sound card owner, is there any reason to upgrade? Absolutely. I was skeptical at first, but then I took a chance and picked up this card when Amazon dropped the price (I had Best Buy price match it for me). Unlike the Creative sound cards that came before it, the Z was designed to over come the aforementioned challenges. Let's see how the Z still covers the two reasons to own a sound card listed above. 1) The Sound Blaster Z has excellent Burr-Brown DACs, capable of outputting a maximum resolution of 24-bit / 192Khz audio with a SNR of 116dB. This pushes the theoretical limits of human hearing, and provides a crystal clear, balanced sound that you won't get from most integrated audio chips. The DAC is one of the most critical components in reproducing an analog sound that is as close to the original as possible. Previous Creative cards featured decent Cirrus Logic DACs that could output close to that resolution. However, a few major problems often prevented the sound from ever reaching the DAC in "bit-perfect" condition, and failed to achieving the highest resolution the DAC supported. For one thing, the DSP which provided the advantage of hardware accelerated mixing also came with a price: it could not achieve the true 24-bit / 96 or 192Khz audio that the DAC supported. Another problem was that Windows would resample the sound before sending it to the sound card DSP where it would get resampled again (unless the user or application used an API to bypass the Windows mixer). Multiple sample rate conversions can introduce artifacts into the sound. Although the Z still has this problem with its DSP (the SoundCore 3D chip), the Z's much improved driver package offers a method (called "Stereo Direct") that allows you to bypass the DSP altogether, allowing for bit-perfect playback providing you bypass the Windows mixer with ASIO, WASAPI exclusive mode or OpenAL. This is great for music playback unless you want to let the Z enhance the sound in some way (upscale to 5.1, use the crystallizer to enhance lossy music, use virtual surround for headphones, etc). Either way, you can enable and disable the DSP as you please. When the DSP is disabled and the Windows Mixer is bypassed, the sound goes straight through the DAC to your speakers unaltered. Be warned if you do this, however. Not even Windows nor the Creative SBX control panel can alter the volume in this state, but that's usually what audio purists want. 2) Now what about when you want to take advantage of the DSP? Aren't all DSP effects handled in software unless you bypass the Windows Mixer? Yes and no. When Creative made Vista / Windows 7 / Windows 8 drivers for the Sound Blaster X-FI, they implemented most DSP effects for gaming and music (like EAX and CMSS3D) in software. As a result, things like CMSS3D and EAX effects would drop as soon as you switched to WASAPI exclusive mode. The only way you could get the DSP to apply these effects in hardware was by using OpenAL. With the Z, most effects are applied in hardware even when bypassing the Windows Mixer (assuming the DSP is turned on). With the Z I was still able to have CMSS3D and other DSP effects when using WASAPI exclusive mode. The same could not be said for the X-FI where those DSP effects were only handled by the hardware when using OpenAL. But does that even matter? I think so. I'd rather have the high end hardware on the Z process the sound than let software do it (especially Windows). As for games, DSP effects such as EAX will still be handled in software if the game uses Direct Sound for audio. Nevertheless, as I understand it, other gaming DSP enhancements in the SBX control panel such as Scout Mode, Crystal Voice and 3D positional enhancements are applied to the sound in the hardware DSP *after* the game / Windows pass it to the card. Overall, this is a great card that provides some clear advantages over its predecessors. If you are considering this as someone who is new to sound cards, it is a worthy purchase if you want an enhanced gaming experience or quality audio in general. If you are thinking about upgrading from a previous Creative card, do it, even if only for the fact that the card has better drivers and can be fully utilized in Windows Vista / 7 / 8.computer sound.

It's perfect for enhancing the sound & graphic quality on my computer

Needed to replace my SoundBlaster X-Fi. Purchased this board and it installed very easily. Sounds great! Like the headphone/microphone unit - great extender allows direct interface to the sound card.

This is actually my second Zx sound card. My first card died a tragic death during a recording session to old analog tape. I really like the separate headphone control center for quick volume adjustment. The only real issue I have with this series of the sound cards are the harsh red LEDs. I went ahead and clipped mine to disable them but that does void the warranty of course if you chose to do this. But for solid recording of audio and excellent sound for games, you can't really do much better than these Z series cards from Creative.

Managed to get it for a good price or else the msrp would not justify the purchase. The module is not worth the extra cash. It's fine if you do not want to use your mic on your headset but like many others have said, it reduces the sound of the headset plugged into it. Would've given it 5 stars if the module worked as intended. The sound card itself is awesome, I can definitely hear the difference and the sound processing can be tweaked.

I have owned Creative sound cards for many years, and none have ever failed to impress me -- this particular card is no exception. It was a plus to find this ZX sound card at my local Bestbuy store!

I only upgrade because of needing the optical connection for my Turtle Beach headset. the audio is better than what it was before! I amazed that it made a difference from my last Creative audio card! The red light is a little annoying but you get used to it! I don't use the little remote control function. It seemed nice but unnecessary. I would high recommend this audio card!

great sound card, love the volume control, needed something to make my pc audio louder and this worked perfectly

I got a good deal on this card. I am not a big gamer but I liked some of the gamer options this card provides. It is a HUGE improvement over the on-board OEM Dell sound card. The Sound Blaster Zx was worth the money that I spent. It had the features I was looking for.

This sound card has all of the inputs needed including subwoofer. The card also glows red when inside the case.

Took my computers audio to a new level. The speaker function works great with the new Windows search by voice.

It is a bit pricy but works for what I need. on board sound went out on my MB.

I`ve been using Sound Blaster audio cards forever. Sound is amazing. I`m using optical out to my old Onkyo receiver. Dolby Digital Live is excellent, audio is crystal clear, gaming is immersive. Control Panel is easy to use, plenty of options. It is way better than on board sound.

This PCIe card is replacing my Xfi Fatality card (old PCI card). Until I bought this sound card, my new build was using onboard sound (Supreme FX) which wasn't too bad, but noticeably not as good as this card. Much loader and clearer--especially with the large speakers I use.

This card really does produce much better quality sound than your traditional built-in sound jack on your computer. Add a nice set of computer speakers to this card and your games and media will sound incredible. Very happy with this purchase!