Absolutely fantastic sound, and of the five PC's I have used these cards in, not one problem yet. One word of advice is that if you intend to use headphones, I would get the ST or STX because of the greater number of headphone impedance matchings.

A1 PLUS for all PC sound. Pair up with a nice set of speakers and you will be ballin'. To Lil G AKA WHINER: B.S. Is all the needs to be said. What is a Windows 98 card doing in an Alien ware case?

Disclaimer: I am not an expert, but simply want to convey my overall impression of this card. There are plenty of expert reviews on the web, which are worth reading before a potential purchase. The sound that this card produces blew me away the first time I used it and still does.

A couple of months ago, we took a look at ASUS' first true entrant into the burgeoning discrete sound card market, the Xonar D2 .  While we were impressed with the cabling and software bundle, the actual hardware proved itself to be a jack of all trades but master of none, with audio quality not

Excellent looking piece of kit - very high quality. But VERY large for a soundcard! Had to fit mine in the second PCIx16 slot as it hit the memory clips on my 680i LT mobo. Needs floppy power connector aswell. Had the same 'not enough resources to run this hardware' error.

The nicest thing for me is how I can connect external A/D and D/A converters to this card, either optically or coaxial, on the same connector. Masterful! I love not having to try to read the fine print on the card to figure out what goes where, just follow the color LEDs. Awesome.

71 surround system; Digital Ins and Outs; LED backlit connectors; Sound Panel in Win XP; Sound quality; Works in Windows 7 Beta

Wish for updated drivers

This card has been out on the market for a long while now, and I've read a lot of posts with good things to say about it. But, since I'm skeptical by nature, I had to see if this thing lived up to its hype. Well, there's nothing quite like first-hand experience.

Much hay has been made of the incredible speed advantages PCI Express offers over PCI. Beyond GPUs, however, we haven't found much worthy of occupying those slots. Asus hopes to change that with its Xonar D2X card-the first soundcard we've reviewed that makes use of the PCI Express interface.

The EAX 5 hack is commendable and the card's LED lights add flash

Initially spotty PCI-E support that must be fixed with a BIOS update

The ASUS Xonar D2X features a host of impressive features, a generous bundle of software, and a variety of connections and cables to help you get fully connected. The Aluminum EMI shield gives it the appearance of a high end graphics card, while the PCI Express x1 connector finally gives you...

» Excellent audio performance in games and multimedia; » Excellent bundle of software and accessories; » PMP software creates good quality; unrestricted 'backups' of DRM files; » Finally something useful to stick in a PCIe x1 slot; » Colored LED illuminated 1/8" jacks

» Requires power from a floppy connector; adapter not included; » PMP software is a bit limited and rough around the edges; » Price

Asus' Xonar D2X is an excellent sound card with a strong software bundle that will appeal to gamers and audiophiles alike, but we hope to see improvements in its software.

Superb audio quality; Supports all major audio standards; PCI Express interface; Includes numerous audio cables

Cumbersome control panel software; PMP music converter is extremely limited; Converter required if you have no available floppy power connector