ASRock Revives the "Blaster" Sound Card Brand in Cooperation with Creative

[siopao1984]

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ASRock just released a card which is the first sound card outside Creative to bear the name "Blaster" without a worry of a lawsuit. In the past, Creative was very vigilant in protecting the "Sound Blaster" heritage but the company opened to 3rd parties who can manufacture products of required quality.The "Sound Core3D quad-core audio and voice processor" is the actual sound-chip powering the latest generation of Sound Blaster cards from Creative. We wondered who is going to take that chip and create a 3rd party product which is not a motherboard (ASRock, ASUS, MSI, GigaByte all shipped products with Creative chips in the past).

As you can see on picture above, ASRock's Game Blaster is an interesting product which combines two technologies in a single package: Creative Sound Core3D and Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet LAN. Unlike Killer NIC and USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet is not present to ensure the datastream fits the sound, but rather to enable Full-Duplex 2Gbps i.e. "teaming".As far as sound capabilities go, there's CrystalVoice filtering technology, EAX 1.0-5.0, THX TruStudio PRO and probably the most interesting one - Scout Mode. This technology enables you to hear enemies from further away... while this may be called a cheat, the technology works that the part of the screen you focus in has more audio focus than things off the screen. If two foes are running towards you, the Scout Mode will "elevate your game" and focus the audio on the person closest to you.

Read more: ASRock Revives the "Blaster" Sound Card Brand in Cooperation with Creative by VR-Zone.com

[lloyd_joy]

nice... i'm a constant user of "sound blaster" cards before... but after some mobo manufacturers intergrated good sound ICs into their boards, my passion on the SB's diminished (for the sake of saving the hard earned cash)... but, any SB add-in card (w/the advance sound chip) still produces awesome sound...

by the way, this add-in card from Asrock is similar in marketing to the ones that was used by Asus Maximus Formula and Extreme mobos (LGA775 and LGA1156)... they also carry the SB technology PCIE sound cards...

[gaspar_73]

kahinumdom ko sa akong AWE64 Gold sauna...lol.

[siopao1984]

kahinumdom ko sa akong AWE64 Gold sauna...lol.

classic! ISA slot

[lloyd_joy]

mao gyud... got mine in mid 1997... with 4MB on the card (AWE64 Gold)... it'a an upgrade to my AWE32 w/ 2MB SDRAM installed on-board... both cards were top notch during their era...

by the way, ask lang ko, daghan pa ba nag gamit ug mga add-on sound card ron? mas nindot gyud ni sila rab ba ug sound reproduction compared sa on-board mobo soundz... ako, on-board audio ra gamit para maka tipid... hehehe... my last SB sound card was their Audigy 2 ZS that was last 2003...