USB Creative Labs Sound Card

[NorthStarMN]

Bought this today - Free shipping and $20.00 off. New not refurb

http://us.creative.com/local/1/promo/externalsoundblaster/welcome.asp?WT.srch=1&WT.source=Google&WT.camp=Sound%20Cards&WT.adgp=X-Fi%20Surround

Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1
Item ID:B0017QQQAE $59.99 Shipping $0.00 Promotional Discount: -$20.00 Total: $39.99

Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1

 

[Zero3133]

I don't think this counts as a game deal, but I'm interested. What exactly does this thing do?

 

[ackbar7]

I am a little unclear as to what the value of surround sound on my netbook would be.

 

[headpiece747]

I have actually been looking at this for my logitech X-540 I just bought and wanted 5.1 sound on my laptop. Thanks OP.

 

[raskol]

Good deal! Bought one.
And while it's not a "game" deal, I for one wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't been posted here.
After reading several reviews, it clearly will make a difference in sound quality while gaming.
Another thing worth mentioning is that if you have a desktop with onboard sound, you can always use the X-Fi Go with that and simply switch it over to your laptop when needed. Kills two birds with one dongle.

 

[jshawnd]

Just a slight warning - I bought one of these in mid December for a Windows 7 laptop. At the time, they didn't support Windows 7 (you could plug it in and it would work, but all the functionality wasn't there, and the sound wasn't much better). So I used their beta drivers, which somehow completely killed one of my USB ports (it still doesn't work, I'm too lazy to fight with Lenovo customer service to get it fixed).

I will say that eventually I got the "sound" part of the driver to work, and it was pretty incredible. But I was so disgusted by the experience that I don't keep it plugged in to my one remaining laptop USB port.

 

[Wolfpup]

So it does work without drivers? What about that $35 one? This could be cool for someone with a notebook with crackly audio. If it were on Amazon for that I'd probably pick one up just in case I ever need it. (Don't care about the post-processing effects, just want clean audio in all situations.)

 

[raskol]

Good warning about the Windows 7 beta driver, but I'm a little confused by it.
The standard driver Creative offers for Win 7 on their site is version 1.01.0096. It says nothing about it being a beta (they have a separate beta drivers section). However, it says it was released in July 09, way before December.
Maybe it's a rebadged Vista driver that just happens to work? I dunno.