Comments for: Asus unveils $89 PCIe sound card with EAX 5 support

Yeah but what about the software end? I don't know about you guys, but I actually like the simple-yet-effective drivers and configuration software for most Realtek onboard audio. It does everything I need without Creative Bloat.

#8, Since ASUS isn't Creative we'll have to wait and see what th... : Kurotetsu (#11) «

#8, I agree, Realtek onboard audio has been superb for me, coupl... : Jon (#12) «

#8, Realtek has the occlusion bug though, meaning no walls and s... : sigher (#33) «

#8, Do people really consider the driver-only packages from Crea... : deruberhanyok (#39) «

#39, I think there's a lot of nostalgic Creative hatred about.... : swaaye (#47) «

#47, Hardware wants to have the PCI bus as much as possible... : Krogoth (#61) «

#61, That may have more to do with the fit and finish of... : Taddeusz (#64) «

#39, It would help if their control panel didn't come with ani... : BenBasson (#48) «

#48, It doesn't look like that at all. Unless you're talkin... : deruberhanyok (#52) «

#39, Yeah that's a good question, let me clarify. For a brief p... : ssidbroadcast (#49) «

#49, Fair to say. I just wonder how many people who like to... : deruberhanyok (#53) «

#26. Posted at 12:10 AM on Mar 20th 2008

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kitsura

So I guess that hardware accelerated sound is pretty much dead ever since Vista?

#26, Since native hardware acceleration for DS3D was removed in V... : Logdan (#29) «

#29, yeah, i see sound cards mostly for adding support for Dol... : willyolio (#31) «

#31, Don't forget music production (even though MS has) - w... : Ubik (#42) «

#29, However fast processors are, I think doing anything in so... : srg86 (#34) «

#34, Nah. The problem that MS 'fixed' with Vista was the do... : Forge (#62) «

#1. Posted at 05:03 PM on Mar 19th 2008

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Spotpuff

Finally! Took long enough for someone other than Creative to get in on this.

I can't see from the picture if it has optical/coaxial digital out, though. It should given the price point but you never know with these things. Certainly it looks like it lacks coaxial out.

Then again, I enjoy integrated audio, and the crab (not crabs, just THE crab) so who am I to judge.

#1, According to site, "S/PDIF Digital Output 44.1K/48K/96K/192KH... : FlatEric815 (#58) «

#2. Posted at 05:12 PM on Mar 19th 2008

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phez

omg! about time!

Now now ... all of you guys who were waiting around with your onboard sound for something like this? I know you're out there.

Well, here's the thing you've been waiting for.

#2, Indeed I was waiting for something like this. Too bad my pic... : enzia35 (#5) «

#5, I also was waiting for a card like this, problem is now t... : stoydgen (#57) «

#37. Posted at 08:54 AM on Mar 20th 2008

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balthazor

No hardware acceleration. Based on an Oxygen HD chip.

Would like to see a rewiew of hardware acceleration vs. software impact on FPS on recent games at medium to high resolutions.

#37, Battlefield 2 randomly locks up if I use hardware accelerati... : BenBasson (#51) «

#17. Posted at 08:26 PM on Mar 19th 2008

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floodo1

SWEEET.....i didnt spend 300 bux on a mobo that has builtin Dolby Digital Live so I'm gonna be ALL over this. DD Live needs to become defacto standard, that way we can have ONE nice optical cable from computer to receiver.

Everyone that's all "my onboard audio is fine," needs to realize that they aren't making this for you. There really can be no comparison between on-board audio and this card, and there can be no comparison between this card and true audiophile sound cards (modded e-mu etc).

We ALL realize that everyone has different standards and it doesnt do much for you to say 'my standards are low, im not into this'

also motherboards can't really have good sound because they don't have the physical board space, and also have electrical interference problems (which is the limit of PC audio anyway).

If you want to get into high quality pc audio go check out head-fi forums or something, and then get yourself a USB dac or some bit-perfect digital out card (maybe your mobo) and use an external dac.

#17, why use lossy AC3 encoding when HDMI supports 7.1 channel un... : crazybus (#24) «

#24, Because of copy protection? All unprotected streams are n... : kitsura (#27) «

#27, who says? The HDCP interface must allow unprotected no... : albundy (#30) «

#30, What's the point? The majority of HD audio content ... : kitsura (#32) «

#32, And there is this problem with needing a separat... : Taddeusz (#41) «

#32, See the thing is you don't need to ever send dec... : ew (#46) «

#24, #24 Hey genius, who said anything about HDMI? I'm talking ... : floodo1 (#40) «

#40, "only problem is that its only super expensive (aka >2... : yehuda (#43) «

#43, 200 for P35 is pretty expensive dood. I mean abit,m... : floodo1 (#44) «

#44, I bought my Intel DP35DP for $109 off Newegg. Gr... : Taddeusz (#45) «

#13. Posted at 07:56 PM on Mar 19th 2008

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desertfox84

What chip does it use? Is it based on Creative silicon, or what? I'm not going to get too excited until I know if it has hardware acceleration on par with creative's offerings.

#13, Probably a C-Media chip. Their higher-end cards use C-Media ... : KorruptioN (#15) «

#13, Same Asus AV200 as the other Xonars, which means C-Media CMI... : Forge (#19) «

#19, the specs say 'AVS100' ... lower end cmedia chip? : phez (#28) «

#19, Creative released new x-fi drivers a few days ago, fixes ... : sigher (#36) «

#19, Actually, X-Fi support has gone open source. It's in the ... : deruberhanyok (#38) «

#25. Posted at 11:51 PM on Mar 19th 2008, Edited at 01:06 AM on Mar 20th 2008

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albundy

sooo, any hardware acceleration? is the DD live encoding even hardware accelerated? would have been nice to throw in some kind of digital passthrough.

edit: it would have even been nicer to just have 1 or 2 hdmi connections on it too!

#25, To have a fully functional soundcard these days they would h... : sigher (#35) «

#18. Posted at 08:49 PM on Mar 19th 2008

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LoneWolf15

Just waiting to see you review this product, Cyril. I'd love to see you do a head-to-head comparison with the X-Fi XtremeGamer. It sounds really promising.

#18, I think Dissonance does sound card reviews usually? But as l... : Flying Fox (#22) «

#21. Posted at 09:29 PM on Mar 19th 2008

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Price0331

Nice, im looking forward to this, i hate having my current sound card covering up partly the heatsink fan on my HD 3870,,, I can finally use that PCIE x1 slot they always seem to jam at the first slot.

#10. Posted at 06:41 PM on Mar 19th 2008

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Kurotetsu

Now this looks awesome. More alternatives to Creative + more PCIe options = right direction.

#7. Posted at 06:03 PM on Mar 19th 2008

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Kaleid

Wow! I may get one of these to replace my X-fi extrememusic...

#6. Posted at 05:35 PM on Mar 19th 2008

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Helmore

Does it have hardware acceleration on 3D sounds or not?
Ah well, this might be a bit of a moot point as we will have more threads available on the CPU then the software (games) can muster. (talking about the future that is.....)