A PCI sound card that we really like? It'll be an ISA graphics card next, if we're not careful

Low profile design; A truly affordable upgrade; Proper 3D sound for games

No Dolby Digital

Some may find that the use of PCI rather than PCIe or the removal of Dolby Digital processing from the AV200 chip is a disappointment but at the price level Asus have targeted with this product it is hard to fault.

Over the last few years the quality of audio functionality on motherboards has increased significantly. The standard offerings such as Realtek's 7.1 Channel 888 chipset offer a large amount of features with little cost to RRP of the board.

I had been using a preamp to digitize my LP collection on an old computer that blew up. This card doesn't have the blue line input. It claims that the first input works for microphone or line in. It works for mic but not my preamp.

For improved sound on a tight budget, the Xonar DS is an excellent choice. With 7.1 channel sound and DTS support, it's a big step up from most onboard audio solutions.

For the price the sound form this is excellent. Unfortunately due to poor customer service from asus and wierd drivers it could be much better. The asus audio center used with the card has decided to stop letting me use the equalizer when in 2 channel mode (despite this being the standard mode for...

The reason for five stars is simple; I'm comparing it to the only other sound card I've ever had, which is none. The difference between the onboard/ integrated audio and the Xonar DS is not really comparable.

Pretty good price; I guess

I have no idea

Perfect card if you want multichannel audio and don't want plethora of cables running around your PC. With DTS Connect which this card supports you can enable all of this via a single, thin optical cable. Great buy at this price.

FANTASTIC! The sound quality is MUCH better then the standard motherboard sound, its also very easy to upgrade the opamp (my preference LME49720HA) Also its very cheap! You cant go wrong, same hardware as the Xonar DX with less options.

Good sound card for the price.

Great for gaming

Some audio distortions on some mp3s