Thread: ASUS' XONAR DX PCI Express 7.1

ASUS' XONAR DX PCI Express 7.1 is powered by Asus' AV100 High-Definition Sound Processor which is actually C-Media's Oxygen HD audio processor. Out of the box, the card is pretty slim and has a massive 37 capacitors on its front while the five ports on its side include the SPDIF Out- Line/ Mic in and the Front, Side, Centre/Sub¬woofer and Rear channels. The card doesn't come with much and all you will find in the box is a quick start guide, a driver and utilities CD and an optical TOSLink adapter.

For our movie tests we used a six minute HD prologue o[The Dark Knight and on our Creative 7.1 speaker system, the Xonar delivered a very commendable performance. The card supports Dolby's Home Theatre Technology and as a result the surround sound created by the 7.1 system was immersive. However, when we plugged our head-phones into the card, we did not find anything extra.



The mids were low and at lower volumes the music and effects drowned out the dialogues. Our gaming tests were done thanks to the excellent sound provided by EA's Dead Space and Valve's Half Life 2: Episode One. The spookiness factor of Dead Space was quadrupled by the Xonar, in fact to a degree where it made us jump a lot (and we mean a lot) oftimes. If you want that extra zing to your gaming, we would seriously recommend this card.

What we found surprising was that although the card's performance on 7.1 speakers was very good, it could not reproduce the same on head¬phones and this will be a
point of interest for users, since not everyone can always have a 7.1 system plugged in. However, its plus points and a reasonable price tag of makes it a worthwhile accessory to your system.