Home > Consumer Reviews > Asus Xonar D2X Sound Card (Black)

Pros:
Sleek EMI shield. PCI-e slot. Smart volume normalization (SVN). S/PDIF coaxial/optical in & out and both directions play nicely with my Denon 3808. DSD3 GX 1.0 for Vista, which brings back DirectSound 3D and EAX 1&2 effects since MS undid that type of support in the kernel, doesn't require OpenAL. Up to 24bit/192KHz res/rate. Massive bundle including RMAA so you can do your own quality tests and PMP, which isn't the user-friendliest tool, but after you develop your method, it will get the job done. I love the audio center GUI, plenty of functions. Plenty of connections. Most important, everything works. Tweaked C-Media chip dubbed Asus AV200 and HQ Burr Brown DACs = excellent performance ratios.

Cons:
Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD MA? I consider this card design HTPC first and gaming second, so I would like to have seen the aforementioned licenses. Still, I appreciate the licenses included and they should suffice. Asus had to add a PCI to PCI-e bridge chip due to C-Media APU, but doesn't seem to be damaging, except this might be the reason for the +5v extra power cable. The X-FI chip from Creative has it built in, but I won't open that Pandora's box.

Thoughts:
Asus has beta drivers out for DSD3 GX 2.0, which will try EAX 5. Haven't tried them yet, but I will eventually. For this price, I just appreciate that Asus is improving it instead of sitting on their butts with a finished product. Make sure you D/L the manual from Asus, it lists and explains a lot, as the included manual leaves you going, huh? Installation went flawlessly in my dual boot XP Pro x86 and Vista Ultimate x64 with a Gigabyte EP35-DS4. This card has some length, on the DS4; you can only use the two PCI-e x1 between the x16 slots. If your GPU is a double wide, that leaves you the one PCI-e x1 slot. You will not have a problem with the extra power cable needed and the south bridge SATA connections. You could use the lower PCI-e x16 slot for this card, but keep in mind on this mobo, that will disable your three PCI-e x1 slots. Plan accordingly. Compare products and do the research, weigh the pros & cons, but for me, the choice was easy.

i recently upgraded from an x-fi platinum edition. hooked up to a pair of mackie hr824 monitors, the sound coming out of this card is remarkable. clearly superior to creative's x-fi cards in every way. if you are an audiophile, this is the card for you.

I had high hopes for this card, but had to return it. I use an intel mother board, with the IDT or sigmatel audio chip set and vista 64. Since the April-09 driver from intel didn't work either, i thought i would spend the money and finally get the most out of my good dolby amp, and JBL 5.1 speakers. So i went through, carefully turned off and uninstalled all the Intel audio stuff, and installed the Xonar 2dx, with the extra power cable. The drivers that came on the CD sort of worked, and looked promising, even though they were dated 2007. the SPDIF worked okay, but didn't sound very robust, instead it was tinny. I went to the ASUS site, and got the latest driver from this year,-March -09 (that was one of the reasons I bought the card, because they had obviously kept up the drivers with some a few months old).

Well, with the March version, the menu's were not readible, and settings therefore could not be accessed. Plus, when going through the ASUS site, it's not possible to know if these updates are cumulative, or whether to load the patch, or whether or not the firmware update is really needed.

In any case, even though i ended up getting SPDIF sound, it wasn't good, wasn't adjustable, none of the controls worked, the NEO 5.1 real time never worked, i couldn't set up or test the 5.1 speakers, etc.

I'm sure that ASUS did a great job on this hardware engineering, but once again, they fall short on the human interface, and the operating system vagaries. I'll be glad when Vista 64 is a distant memory, but in the meantime, i guess i'm stuck with mediocre sound.

The Xonar has Direct, Dolby digital, and DTS (Digital Theater Surround) sound, and works great with my home Studio. This 64 bit card will not work as a stand alone digital recorder, because it has too much latency. However it works great with my mixer, which has control room out that allows me to hear my recordings without latency. Anyone with a small studio mixer who wants to record 5.1 or 7.1 surround will love it. You must have the correct software to do this. I'm using Cakewalk Producer edition to record surround, but it's a wee bit expensive unless you're elgible for an upgrade.
Ronnie Bee

GREAT Card for Music, Games, Movies.

For me i need a card that i can Rec using the LINE-INPUT BUT!
it was SO LOW !!! nothing i could do to get it UP, ie: Driver updates
even Beta, user data-Base. in the end, company wont FIX this.

Return it/Refund and NOW the best card is Auzentech X-Fi Forte 7.1
its X-Fi - minus the BLOT!! software, no POP, crackle sounds!! NONE!!

Last: If you dont need to Rec & only care about just playback
ie: Music, Games, Movies & thats IT ??? than this is for You, not for me.