The Sound BlasterX G5 was recognized right away after we have installed the supplied drivers and besides a change of menu positioning versus the ZxR, we have felt right at home, recognizing the effects we have seen before: Surround, Crystalizer, Bass, Smart Volume, Dialog Plus and so on. The ability to choose between three different profile slots adds a bit of flexibility, along with the Scout Mode button right on the hardware itself instead of setting a hot key on our keyboard. Instead of opening up the console each and every time we switch between headphones with different impedances, we can now use the simple button on the sound card just to do that.

In order to check out the card performances, we have used the Rightmark Audio Analyzer utility (with all effects disabled, in order to get accurate results) which tells an interesting story! The included Cirrus Logic CS4398 DAC along with the Texas Instruments TPA6120A2 headphone amplifier are a very good combination since this new model passes over the Omni 5.1 with flying colors and we can say that it positions itself safely near the internal variants: Titanium HD and Sound Blaster ZxR. This is quite a great deal considering that it is not taking any more extra space inside our computer (some ITX builds do not allow installation of a dedicated sound card) and can be also switched back and forth between consoles, PCs/Laptops but also Macs.

The card was also tested while watching TV Shows, movies but also while gaming and performing Skype conferences; our experience was no different versus a high-end sound card while using our trusty SteelSeries Elite Prism but also the SteelSeries flagship, Siberia 800.

The Sound BlasterX G5 sound card can be found online for about 150 Euros and if you guys pair it with some decent headphones you will surely get a nice experience while in games but also while watching multimedia content!

Creative Sound BlasterX G5 7.1 HD Audio Portable Sound Card is Recommended For:

We would like to thank again to Creative for making this review possible!