Finally, after many months of waiting by loyal Xitel customers now is a time of joy. Beginning February, after many delays, Xitel is finally shipping their highly anticipated Vortex 2 based Xitel Storm Platinum and Sharky Extreme are amongst the first publications to take an in-depth look at this 3D sound card.

Xitel might not be a name as well known as Diamond or Creative to John Doe, but for those that have sampled the goods it's a name not easily forgotten. Back in 98 whilst playing the role as hardware reviewer at AVault I stumbled upon Xitel's original Storm VX board based on the first incarnation of the Vortex chipset and I've been faithful ever since. (and don't think I haven't had my share of audio boards, the Monster Sound, MX200, Sonic Storm and various CreativeLabs boards have all taken a turn in my humble gaming rig as well as a few Taiwanese Vortex 1 boards).

First things first, let's have a look at what you get for your $99.95 (MSRP):

• The Storm Platinum board
• Driver CD
• Aureal A3D demo CD
• Force Feedback Headphones
• 2 x AAA Batteries (for the Headphones)