Creative Sound Blaster Audigy FX 5.1 PCIe Sound Card with SBX Pro Studio

I recently updated my PC, new mobo/CPU/GPU/RAM/SSD, the whole thing, but not a sound card. The new mobo promised so much with the onboard sound I didn't think it needed one. The reality is I have been sorely disappointed with the mobo's onboard sound, I have spent many hours and tried many different pieces of software trying to tweek a decent sound. After reading the reviews this looked like a simple & cheap upgrade to see if I needed a new speaker set up. I currently use a 5.1 Cambridge Soundworks (yes it is quite old) and really didn't want to say goodbye to it prematurely. The soundcard arrived with a simple instruction leaflet with diagrams (in many languages) along with a driver CD and a smaller height I/O bracket - my PC case is a full tower so no need to swop, the full height I/O was already fitted.Simply plugged soundcard into spare socket on mobo (make sure your PC is disconnected from the mains before opening it up), powered up and went into mobo Bios (usually F12 or Delete - check your mobo manual) and disabled onboard sound, rebooted and Win 10 installed drivers, one more reboot and Win 10 recognised the card. I installed the software from the CD and was then able to tweek the sound to suit my set up and it sounds absolutely fantastic.My 5.1 is now delivering frequencies Iv'e not heard in a long time and overall I am so impressed with the difference this has made, just sorry I hadn't done this sooner. It is a cheap & effective upgrade and knocks spots off onboard sound (FYI my mobo is an MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon socket AM4), if upgrading to this card then make sure you turn down your speakers before fitting as I found the volume to be a lot higher.

Not sure if it was the manufactured positioning of the PC case or the screws on the back plate of the sound card being a bit too long but they got in the way of each other making for a slightly heart stopping moment as the card, under the pressure I needed to exert, popped past the 'obstruction' and into the PCIe slot. Fortunately, the pins on the card were in line with the PCIe slot as it shot into place and I got away without damaging anything. Card ships with the full sized PC back plate attached. I wanted to use the SFF PC plate. The screws were so tightly affixed to the card that I did find it difficult to unscrew it and switch to the appropriate sized back plate. There is potential to damage the card here if you need to change the plates. I have advised Creative of these issues.I have installed the card into a new Win 10 PC in order to use my 5.1 surround sound system as I upgrade to Win 10 on a space saving SFF device. Do not expect Windows 10 updater to find the necessary driver. The driver is available on the Creative website and, once installed, the card works fine with all the Creative facilities designed to work with the card. The basic Win 10 driver, I found in Device Manager, did not operate the card correctly - in fact I found it to be useless at getting any sensible activity from the card. The Creative driver is a must then, once you have checked the settings - you will need to do this as they do not default to 5.1 automatically - sit back and enjoy the experience.

Bought this as a cheap upgrade to the onboard sound card.Definite improvement in quality, games have more atmosphere and background sounds.I don't use this wit ha mic so can't comment on the quality of the sound-in. I only really use it with either my monitor's speakers via HDMI or a decent pair of Bluetooth headphone so can't comment on the output quality if you are using an expensive 5.1 speaker set.For a cheap upgrade though it did everything I wanted.Do be aware there have been do driver updates from Creative for over 10 years now so you can probably consider this as no longer really supported.

Thanks to Windows 10, this only gets 3 stars (Now updated to 5 stars, Windows has sorted itself out - for now). I feel this should start the review off as anyone buying this should be aware. The last Windows 10 main branch update borked the drivers for Creative and many other sound cards. More often than not, Win 10 will fail to identify the device correctly or load the drivers correctly, leaving you with a partially functioning sound card. A restart 'might' solve the problem, then again, it might not.A brief look at various Windows Insider reports suggests that this isn't fixed in the next branch update either, so there is no resolution on the horizon at the time of writing this.When it works correctly it's fantastic, bringing excellent stereo and 5.1 surround sound to your PC (you need the speakers or relevant headset to use 5.1). The software that Creative make for it is effective and really easy to use too, with a decent amount of functionality for such a low price.EDIT: As of Windows 10, version 19041 I have had no issues with the sound card drivers.

Couldn't get it to work in windows 7 and almost sent it back due to all kinds of horrible problems with PC after installing. I now realise this was due to a conflict with the onboard audio and this was resolved through disabling the HD Audio controller in BIOS (easy enough to find and toggle). Now works perfectly and sounds great!

I bought this to upgrade an older PC. It took seconds to install and get running and works well with both cheap and more expensive speakers. The drivers were easy to find online too.