Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional 70SB088600002-8 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card

Pros: The sound on this card is clearly superior to my onboard sound (as well as my last soundcard).
I use my computer mostly for gaming and I noticed a drastic improvement within about three seconds of starting a game. Sounds are just soo much clearer, and there's sounds I swear I didn't hear before.
I always skipped over soundcards because my onboard was free and I thought it sounded fine, until it stopped working. I really didn't want to spend much on a card but I'm definitely enjoying it and don't see myself going back to onboard anytime soon.
Oh, and the best part is that the X-Fi logo lights up in white it looks awesome.

Cons: Not free, but definitely worth the price. Also, the audio control panel is boring and difficult to use for a novice like myself.

Other Thoughts: Neither the CD drivers nor web drivers could detect this card. I had to uninstall my Realtek drivers and disable onboard sound in my BIOS and, viola, the card was detected.

Pros: Definitely a better sounding card than the Audigy 7.1 and obviously miles better than onboard sound. Fits, works, no driver issues.

Cons: Compare this "Fatal1ty" to the other lower costing XF-I Titanium, and you won't find a difference. The same specs, just this one has a plastic cover, the other one doesn't. Also the XF-I Titanium has the header input for your computer case aux jack so you get the XF-I HD audio from the case jack as well. Smart. Seriously compare the cards on Newegg with them side-by-side and you'll see the PCB is the exact same, same chips and all. What stopped me from giving it 5-Eggs is because of a jacked up price, name, and look for the same lower costing card.

Other Thoughts: Go for the XF-I Titanium instead, cheaper, same thing as Fatal1ty.

Pros: Excellent sound.

Positional sounds...was playing Diablo 3 and listened to sound FX coming from all over even with headphones.

Haven't tried it with any other games yet, still breaking in a new build. But if it's anything like my other Fatal1ty, it should be awesome.

Cons: None that I can think of...

Other Thoughts: I bought this to replace my 5 year old SB Fatal1ty ExtremeGamer(PCI). I installed it in my new build but it was causing crash after crash. The new Fatal1ty Titanium is PCI-E...Almost had returned it because my motherboard's two PCI-E 1x slots were poorly positioned. The one closest to the northbridge is blocked by the huge heatsink. The other is on next to the PCI-E slot for the video card and is blocked by double width cards. Fortunately, PCI-E 1x cards work perfectly fine in PCI-E 16x slots..

Pros: This card sounds phenomenal. I owned the regular PCI version (non-PCI-E) and it's been my favorite sound card, ever. Sadly, when I went to water cooling, my GPU water blocks covered up my PCI slot, so I had to purchase this one; the PCI-E professional model. I have to say, it's clarity, it's mid-range, and overall deep, theatrical bass have my friends, family, and anyone who uses my PC say, "whoa, dude, your speakers sound REALLY, REALLY good! It's SOOO clear!" I'm never going back to using a stock, motherboard audio setup again. It's honestly so bright, crisp, and full of sound. I can hear every instrument being played in songs, the crispness of drum cymbals, the clarity of vocal ranges, the screaming sounds of guitars, and pounding of drums. This card just blows me away. I can't even get started on how good games sound on it.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I purchased the refurb model and it's working flawlessly. I installed it, installed the software, ran the updates, and plugged in my speakers. Couldn't be happier with the sound! There's so many EQ settings and environments to choose from. I particularly like the Crystalizing Effects and the 3D Surround (Xpand).

Pros: Good card when it doesn't effectively mute itself, lots of features

Cons: Auto adjusts volume in windows 7. Happened with multiple fresh OS installs, with different OS versions, up to date drivers, out-of-date drivers, 3rd party drivers, windows generic drivers, disabled mute on communication, options on, options off. The volume adjustments over compensate so much that it practically mutes the audio at a certain threshold. I naturally turned up the volume so I could hear something, then when the volume went back down the threshold it boosts the volume back up to full and shakes the house (very annoying if you're watching a movie late at night). This essentially makes the sound card worthless. The only work around I've found is to set the volume for the speakers down to around 10% in windows and then turn the speakers all the way up. But isn't always effective.

Other Thoughts: My card was new in box not refurbished, but I wanted to have people who were considering buying this product to know how poorly even a new board works. This is not a rare issue, I've found many forum posts regarding this issue, it was referred to as volume compression. All were filled with helpful people giving advice and possible fixes, none of which worked and each thread was eventually abandoned. Creative's attempt to help solve the issue was just a bunch of automated programs that kept telling me everything is working properly.
Filled with bloatware, considering limited trials 'critical updates' and effectively less useful than an onboard sound. Do yourself a favor and don't get a creative sound card, as they can't even be bothered with making sure their top of the line cards even work with current operating systems.

Pros: Slapped this baby in my Crosshair V and not only does it look amazing but it performs amazingly as well. Clearer overall sound and more defined bass. The drivers seem to work fine for me on x64 win 7. The encoder is nice when playing music but doesn't seem to work with games but it sounds amazing without it.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I'm running this to my Pioneer VSX-1018AH using the optical out. 12" Polk sub woofer and huge custom built Pioneer speakers, not those little home theater package deal speakers. I'm talking big sound, big wires, big power. I would recommend this card to anyone with a good system who would actually benefit from having a dedicated sound card.

Pros: I used to be skeptical about sound cards, but after using this I can say without a doubt it's worth it.
-> Much louder sound (used to keep my system at 100% volume, now it's anywhere from 30-40%)
-> Lots of customization in provided software
-> Unbelievably clear compared to on-board
-> Better looking than most sound cards (It even has a glowing white logo)
-> Great virtual bass

Cons: -> No individual 7.1 ports
-> Occasionally there is crackling, but it is quickly fixed by resetting customizations to default and playing with the dials again
-> Microphone was not default, had to go into the settings and change it from "Line In". Not really a major issue, just a little confusing out of the box

Other Thoughts: Overall, I went from someone who never thought a sound card was worth it to someone who can't go without it any more. It just sounds simply amazing. I'm hearing things in game I never would have been able to hear before and I'm hearing music in a whole new light. Definitely recommended.

Pros: Iv always been a little skeptical with sound cards, and the point in buying them, unless you are doing video editing, or perhaps a music artist or something of the sort. But the difference between the onboard, and this card is substantial. Its a huge improvement and it even stopped the problem I would have with people hearing what is coming through my headphones (sound wise) and people say I sound much clear'er. For 100$ you cant beat it.

Cons: unattractive packaging (but its recertified and not anything to take a egg over)

Pros: I've always been skeptical when it comes to sound cards. I never really saw the purpose of upgrading from onboard. Many people say that onboard has become so advanced these days, that you can't really tell the difference. However, after taking the plunge, i'm never going back. The sound quality is just so much clearer and sharper than onboard. You can really tell the difference when you play around with the settings. I'm very happy I decided to go with it. The re-certified price just made the deal even sweeter.

Cons: Drivers can be a pain. They also come pre-packaged with tons of bloatware. Just make sure you take your time when installing the drivers, and you'll be able to avoid all the bloat pretty easily. Also a while back I was having issues where the drivers wouldn't load correctly on boot, and I would have to re-boot to get sound to work. I just re-installed the drivers and the issue went away.

Other Thoughts: The white LED on it looked horrible in my case. To fix it I just unscrewed the metal shielding and put a small piece of electrical tape over the LED's, and put the shielding back on. Now it looks great.

Pros: It works great. I dont know what ppl are saying it doesnt work get the new drivers from thw website not the CD

Cons: NONE