Gaming performance
To test the X-Fi's impact on in-game frame rates, we rounded up a handful of games and 3DMark03's handy audio benchmark.

3DMark03

In 3DMark03's 3D audio benchmark, the X-Fi has a modest lead over the Audigy2, but one that gets more pronounced as the number of sounds increases. The ALC880 and Revolution 7.1 don't give the X-Fi much of a run for its money, either; the former doesn't support 3DMark03's 60-sound setting, while the latter is almost ten frames per second off the pace.

DOOM 3
DOOM 3 didn't initially support hardware acceleration for 3D audio; however, the latest 1.3 patch adds EAX 4.0 HD support for the Audigy2 and X-Fi. We tested all the cards with the game's standard surround sound setting, and we also tested the Creative cards in EAX 4.0 mode.

Not much to see here. The X-Fi leads the pack, but it's only faster than the other cards by a hair.

Half-Life 2

Although barely faster than the Audigy2 in Half-Life 2, the X-Fi has a clear lead over the M-Audio Revolution 7.1, and to a lesser extent, the ALC880.

Unreal Tournament 2004
We ran through our Unreal Tournament 2004 timedemo in each of the game's three 3D audio modes.

The X-Fi doesn't have much opportunity to stretch its legs in the first 3D mode, which doesn't take advantage of hardware acceleration. However, in the game's two hardware-accelerated modes, the Creative cards run away from the competition. Note that, again, there's not much difference in performance between the Audigy2 and X-Fi.

Battlefield 2
We used FRAPS to record in-game frame rates for a two-minute run through Battlefield 2. This method of benchmarking isn't quite as reliable as in-game timedemos, but our results were reasonably consistent over five test runs.

We tested each of the cards with Battlefield 2's high quality 3D audio setting. Since the game also has an ultra quality mode for the X-Fi, we tested that, as well.

It doesn't quite catch the Audigy2, but the X-Fi performs extremely well in Battlefield 2, in particularly because there's no performance hit associated with the game's "ultra" quality mode. The additional sounds provided in the ultra mode were easily noticeable, at least to my ears.