ASUS Xonar D2X 7.1 @ zipzoomfly $159.99

[greyaro]

ASUS Xonar D2X 7.1 soundcard @ zipzoomfly $159.99
link: http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/...p?ProductCode=10008405
review:http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-xonar-d2x-review/

 

[sjwaste]

Wow, that got good reviews. Would this be a good card for an HTPC, or is that a waste if I use the optical out?

I don't currently have a receiver, but once I get one, I'd imagine it's not going to have individual channel inputs to take advantage of the card doing the decoding, or would it?

 

[postmortemIA]

Review isn't much favorable when it comes to gaming with EAX:

The only problem is that I did not notice much of a difference in sound between the software/32-voice mode and the DS3D GX powered Ultra 128-voice mode. They sounded nearly identical, in fact. One of the things the X-Fi can do is EAX 5.0 on the fly (with about a 15% performance penalty), and the immersion in the game is so very alluring. You can hear things like support pillars blocking sound, gunfire ricochets, and that disturbing hiss of a grenade. You don't hear that with DS3D GX. It does do what it's supposed to do, subvert EAX detection, but then again, it doesn't actually do any of the more interesting EAX effects either. I guess I'll wait for Asus to reverse engineer EAX 5, or wish for Creative to open source EAX.