I have both the X3 and G6. The X3 is better for the PC-only gamer but for gamers who use consoles supporting optical as well, if it was one unit or the other, then the G6 is better / more versatile because it has optical in and can therefor do proper Dolby 5.1 > VSS conversion for consoles. The X3 obviously cannot do that as it lacks optical in and existing consoles can’t send DD5.1 or indeed any multichannel signal over USB.
SXFI capability was bugged on X3 the last time I tried it - distorted rears in comparison to the SXFI AMP / dongle (which I also have), confirmed by other users including
@HieroX who confirmed the issue physically in person with Creative months ago. Dunno whether it’s been fixed yet as I use the SXFI dongle for HRTF. Maybe he can provide an update.
not clear what you mean by that?
Fegefeuer is right on this one. You will be unlikely to notice a difference with ultra high values unless perhaps if you are playing audio files with a correspondingly high *native* resolution and even that is subject to debate.
Gaming, movies and digital TV content is native 24/48 max (often less at 16/44 or 24/44) and there is little point in forcing your source PC to ‘upscale’ it. At best, nothing will happen and you won’t hear a difference other than that induced by cognitive placebo. At worst, you’ll cause rendering errors resulting in artefacting, I.e. some form of distortion. Best not to get too caught up in marketing numbers. I mean, if those are a priority for you then you should know that out of the X3, G6 and SXFI AMP/dongle, the X3 actually has the weakest dac/amp specs.
For SXFI HRTF, no, it cannot be pushed out via optical. Ticking the “apply headphone virtualization” box applies *SBX* VSS to the optical out. So SXFI - no, SBX - yes.