(Review) Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 4 OEM

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 OEM

Well , I finally got my minor upgrade , and was able to sneak in a sound card too . Now , you all are already aware that the XFi series of sound cards are at the top right now , but even then , they’re still quite high priced . So I had to choose a sound card that was performing and in my budget . I had the Audigy 2 ZS in mind , but was not able to find it . Instead was offered the Audigy 4 OEM , slightly higher priced . I was in doubt whether this is another chip that uses software cycles to emulate EAX (like the Audigy Value or the SB Live 24 bit 7.1 cards) , but upon unveiling it I found it infact uses a similar chip than that used in the Audigy 4 Pro , the CA10300-IAT .


Well , that was the story , and man was I eager to plug this one in . But before I move onto that , here is bit about the card itself :

Packaging :

• The sound card
• Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Installation and Applications CD
• Digital Audio Cable
• Quick Start Entertainment Center Manual , Audigy 4 Manual
• IR Receiver , Remote Control
• A Sound Blaster demo CD (must hear)

Main Features :

• EAX Advanced HD 4.0 (24 bit) , 192 KHz, 106dB SNR
• 7.1 Channel Speaker system support
• Dolby Digital Ex Support
• CMSS Audio Technology
• Remote Controlled Audio System and Entertainment Center
• ASIO 2 support
• Advanced Res DVD Audio
• SPDIF I/O , Sound Fonts
• Full OpenAL Support

Entertainment Center Tools :


Haven’t tried the remote yet , but surely the functions seem good enough .

First Impressions :

Well , the box isn’t very impressive , but the bundle will make u jump in joy . I couldn’t expect a value or OEM card to have so many things bundled with it . Anyway , here are some additional details ; the card has 6 external ports and 2 internal ports , out of which 1 internal port is a Digital Input Audio Connector . The installations is very basic , and simple ofcourse . Just clear up the PCI slot u want to plug this in , and fit it on, boot up , insert the CD and follow the on-screen installation guide . The first CD install the drivers along with various utilities ,and Creative Media Source . The second CD includes some HD sound content , to actually portray the capabilites of the sound card . This , although is optional for basic operation of the sound card , is a must install if you want to see what actually your sound card is capable of .

The following applications are bundled along with the driver cd :

• Creative Audio Console
• Creative Speaker Settings
• Creative Surround Mixer
• Creative EAX Console
• Creative Graphic Equalizer
• Creative MediaSource DVD Audio Player
• Creative SmartRecorder
• Creative Speaker Calibrator
• SoundFont Bank Manager
• Creative WaveStudio
• Creative System Information
• Creative Entertainment Center


Detailed Information :

Now , the most basic thing that would come into your mind , is why invest in a “Sound Card” , when the current on-board solutions support HD audio ? Well , to be honest , the current onboard sound solutions are not enough for the current demands . For a general user it might be more than enough , but for building a performing PC , u would want to free up every bit of resource u want to squeeze out that last bit of performance u can . And for this , either you’ll have to go for a very high end motherboard , which actually has a fully dedicated sound processor , or get yourself an additional PCI or an external sound card .

So here I am , bragging about minor technicalities about an add-on sound card . But did u ever wonder , why so many variants of a sound card ? Similar to graphics card , the sound cards too have different classifications . For example , if your budget is very tight , and your still using an old motherboard (say the old Intel 845 based) , getting a cheap “Audigy Value” will ensure u a 7.1 channel support . But then , if u get a Audigy 2 ZS instead , what difference will it make ? Well , the difference is quite a lot . Infact particularly here , the technical details differ by miles . But lets not get into that , and to keep things simple , the better the sound card , the lower the CPU utilization without compromising quality i.e. By this I mean to say , that suppose u enable EAX on an onboard HD audio solution , it might take up 15% of the CPU cycles , while the same effect using a Audigy Value might require only 10% of the cycles . So simply , the better the card , the less the CPU cycles occupied , thus resulting in a much better CPU performance .

Anyway , lets skip to some benchmarks shall we . No this time I cannot use 3DMark or PCMark . Instead I’ll be using RightMark 3DSound v2.3 . It simply runs the sample’s u want to , and present the output as a graph depicting CPU utilization . The typical start screen is like as follows :


So I ran some sample , and noted the output graphs and here are the results :

1. 8-64 buffers , 44100 Hz



2. 8-64 buffers , 96000 Hz


I’ve gotta say , WOW . That’s really mean for a card under 5k’s , and an average of 0.5% CPU utilization even using a very high sound quality setting .

Conclusion :

This card offers a superb value to performance ratio . U can turn up all the sound effect u want to , and still don’t have to worry about any performance loss . Couple it up with a good 5.1 speaker system (ofcourse something better will do even better) , and you’re set to have a rocking sound experience . Even though the current scenario is ruled by the XFi series of cards , u can surely give this card a try . The advanced features bundled with the negligible performance hit , this card can surely be preferred over any other card , considering the price i.e. The only negative point that i can find to mention is that the card lacks a "game port" . But is it that important anyway ?

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