TechReport take a further look at the Creative's Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty audio card. To support X-RAM, the X-Fi Fatal1ty is endowed with a 64MB memory chip that you won't find on the XtremeMusic. The Fatal1ty card also adorns the X-Fi audio chip with a small heat sink, although we haven't run into overheating problems with our heat sink-less XtremeMusic. Apart from its extra memory, heat sink, and LED housing, the X-Fi Fatal1ty audio card appears to be identical to the XtremeMusic. Given the XtremeMusic's credentials, that's a good thing. Both cards share an impressive 109dB signal-to-noise ratio, and both can handle audio streams up to 24 bits at 192kHz.

Only Battlefield 2 and Quake 4 even support X-RAM, and neither's use of the X-Fi Fatal1ty's 64MB of onboard memory results in higher in-game frame rates or superior audio quality. That's a disappointing result, although since neither Battlefield 2 nor Quake 4 was developed from the ground up with onboard sound card memory in mind, our results are hardly a condemnation of X-RAM as a technology.

As games process an increasing number of simultaneous sounds and gamers demand higher fidelity, X-RAM could start to make a lot of sense. Yet despite Creative's claims that more X-RAM-aware titles are coming, we really have to wonder whether developers will be willing to dedicate significant resources to fully exploiting a feature that's only available on high-end sound cards that cost upwards of $250. Upcoming titles will clearly have to do more with X-RAM than Battlefield 2 and Quake 4 if onboard sound card memory is to become a must-have feature for gamers and enthusiasts.

So X-RAM may not be living up to its potential, but the rest of the X-Fi Fatal1ty is pretty impressive. The card boasts equivalent audio quality to the X-Fi XtremeMusic, which to our ears sounds better than any consumer-level PC sound card on the market. The Fatal1ty I/O drive is nice to have, too, if only to make up for the rather sparse array of output ports available on the card itself. Just keep in mind that the playback and recording quality of those I/O drive-mounted analog audio ports isn't quite as good as those connected directly to the card.