Onboard vs External DTS encoding yay!

[PurdueRy]

Which would be the better setup,

1. An Audigy 2 ZS connected to a DTS-610 for real time DTS encoding.

2. A Auzentech X-Plosion Sound card.

Pro's and cons I see to each.

1.
- More wires and less simplistic. Have to connect current sound card to it via analog cables(they are 3.5 mm cables though and only 3).
- 5.1 is the max it can encode to
- EAX would be supported
- Better game performance(assumption)
- Cheaper Assuming the sound card is already owned
- Creative software(I hate it)

2.
- One wire connection to any receiver and one card solution
- 7.1 DTS encoding
- Shaky EAX support
- Not as good game performance
- Encoding adds load to CPU
- Slightly more expensive

Anyone have any input into these two options? I really think these are both gonna start growing in popularity and am wondering what everyone else thinks is the better way to go.

 

[talbot3]

Another advantage of 2. is that there will be only one digital to analog conversion.
with option 1. there will be a digital to analog at the soundcard, analog to digital at the encoder, and finally digital to analog at the receiver.

If your receiver has a 5.1 channel analog input, encoding to DTS is unnecessary.