Computex 2007: ASUS Showcases New Generation Audio Card

ASUS, announced the first product of its brand new product line: the ASUS Xonar D2 7.1-channel audio card. This new audio card is based on the AV200 audio chip, which offers a SNR of 118db for both audio in and out to all 8 channels. Besides delivering impressive audio quality, the Xonar D2 is also packed with multiple sound technologies like Dolby Digital Live, Dolby Headphone, Dolby Virtual Speaker, and Dolby Pro Logic IIx, which creates up to 7.1-channel surround from stereo or 5.1 sources as well as DTS Interactive for real time AC-3 encoding. The Xonar D2 also comes with a special application called "Portable Media Processor". This application works with the onboard ALT (Analog Loopback Transformation) circuit to provide almost lossless analog recording audio quality from digital music files. For more details regarding ASUS Xonar D2, please click here.



Source: ASUS

 

All I want to know is, does it have an on-board DSP, or is it still using my cpu to process the sound?

 

wats da diff wid dolbdy digital live and DTS

 

a fan? well i guess, since my x-fi does have a heatsink... but didnt realize a sound card would get that hot... sounds good but i finally got my x-fi working right and i'll stick with that

 

I was just thinking the same thing TX. I was like, is that a heatsink/fan combo on there or what?

I thought Asus' soundcard was supposed to use the "Oxygen DSP sound chip" made famous on the Auzentech and razer sound cards? Also, wasnt it supposed to have an integrated DSP with X-Fi technology or supposedly, based on the X-Fi cards with a marriage of the Auzentech Oxygen chip? I could have sworn that was posted sometime back. DAMN MY MEMORY FOR FAILING ME!!!!

 

None of the Auzentech boards actually have a true DSP, save for the X-Fi card they're due to release. They still use the cpu to do the work. The Cmedia chip is essentially an I/O chip, much like on-board sound. (albeit at a higher quality)

 

No fan/heatsink, is just a shield for harmfull stuff inside you computer that would mess the sound up (very scientific explanation xD).

"Stylish EMI shield for stable audio quality" says a brochure.

 

Razer and Asus both claim that they designed their own chips, but I´m quite sure that you will find C-Media chips(the Oxygen HD is their high-end-product) underneath both of their "EMI-Shields".

 

ahh ok, thanks everyone. It seems my memory just mashed everything together. IT was the Auzentech that is releasing one that has the X-Fi DSP with the Oxygen HD chip. Thats an awesome one there.

YEah, C-Media chips is what I meant to say. Thanks guys.

 

http://resources.vr-zone.com//newspics/Jun07/04/Xonar-8.jpg

EAX win xDDDDDdddd Joke for today. Like there is use for eax 2.0 anymore... Is that trying to say that X-Fi doesn't have EAX 2.0 HW support?! At least mine has for 2, 3 & 4.

 

I think my Audigy 2 Zd has suppost for 2 and 3 and maybe 4. In some games I Can enable 4.0 and in others its not an option. So Im not sure.

 

To be honest, after I'm a "proud" owner of Creative X-Fi...I'm more and more convinced that sound card makers are putting all they can to show us the digits, show off how good they are when talking about hardware...and then comes the software part.
The Xonar D2 may look stunning in terms of hardware specs, but let's wait and see what software and drivers will come with the card.

 

Yea! Creative's lousy Vista support has been one of the main reasons I've stayed with XP. But the deal w/ EAX 2.0... they're a business. What can you expect? They wanna make money!

 

Didnt we read about this like months ago ?
Im still waiting for it to be really tested before i make up my mind

 

nothing to hate about. EAX is created by creative, therefore they that exclusive use of it. Why cannot the other manufactures invent there clone EAX and promote it?

creative is not the only company suffering lame driver support...and cmedia drivers are made third party, cmedia doesnt make jack.

CMEDIA is nothing special...just a tad better than intergrated, but todays better boards are having decent sound...

 

Yep, and it had the pci-e 1x version as well, dunno what happened to it, creative has been quiet too after it's pci-e 1x annoucement ages ago. Now I have a different motherboard an the need for a pci-e 1x soundcard went byebye (much more room between GPU and bottom PCI).

 

Creative has the next gen of SoundCards based on Pci-e 1x ready but why are they not releasing them i dont know. Perhaps they are waiting for ASUS to roll out its Card and see what they are up against

 

Hey -- looks cool, and unlike the $250 "Killer NIC," it's actually useful!

 

Remember Aureal? Aureal > Creative (I still have and use a Aureal Vortex 2 SQ2500 "SuperQuad" card to this day and love it)

Anyhow, saying CMEDIA is a tad better than onboard shows a lack of knowledge and understanding. You have to remember that CMEDIA caters to the whole sound market segment, not just gamers/enthusiasts ect ect... Even though Creative has a sort of "budget" line of sound cards, products from CMEDIA and others in this catagory were never meant to compete against this.

Those cards from Auzentech/BlueGears and a few others using modern high end CMEDIA chips and chipsets, IMO, are superior products to anything @ Creative with really the only breaking point being a lack of higher EAX support (and for me personaly, I could care less as I've never found anything special about EAX anyhow).

 

Show me the drivers.

Not just to bring up a dead topic, but they are showing it off this week.

I think what it comes down to is driver support. For me that means Linux drivers, most of you: Vista drivers. They do have an advantage in a way though, they are starting from scratch so they don't have years of legacy code thats completely incompatible with anything but the pre-vista windows sound model. Lets just hope they use that to their advantage.