ASUS XONAR D2X

2008-08-21 00:22:26

Anyone having tested this card:

Any driver problems with Vista? ASIO, WASAPI, and Direct Sound.

Sound quality of multichannel Dolby, DTS, sample rate conversion.

Gaming sound quality / compatibility with OpenAL, and DS3D GX for EAX 1.0, 2.0 / Direct Sound.

Any speed quirks with a PCI-PCI Express bridge chip?

Although specs look good, user opinions vary.

ASUS XONAR D2X

Reply #1 – 2008-08-21 09:50:03

I have Xonar DX which is a bit stripped-down version (no DTS live and different DAC/ADC manufacturer).
I may only provide opinion about some of the the features you requested. Unfortunately, I don't use Vista (why should I?).

The sample rate conversion seems very good, I couldn't ABX a 44/16 file from a 192/24 resampled in foobar on Sennheiser HD 215. (I have Xonar set to use 192 kHz internally)
On XP I haven't encountered any problems regarding DirectSound playback, played through Mass Effect without any sound issues (I haven't fiddled with DS3D GX so I don't know if it was enabled or not by default driver installation).
So far, the experience is flawless but that's just for WinXP.
The card has some pseudo-3D stereo enhancements which I recorded through analog loopback (line-out-line-in). If you're interested:
http://martel.ic.cz/Xonar/
(you may notice the incredibly low noise of the card in certain parts that don't have natural noise)

If you wish to see some negative opinions, the Asus forum is a traditional place to visit. 
http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx?SLang...amp;board_id=21

ASUS XONAR D2X

Reply #2 – 2008-08-24 05:21:18

I've got a DX, and it smacks the crap out of my old turtle beach and creative cards. Makes motherboard "HD sound" sound like AM radio by comparison

The only problem with the Xonar series that I'm aware of is incompatibility with certain Nvidia chipsets. The 7-series boards have a BIOS fix in place, but if you're using 680i or older, you'll probably have problems getting the pci-e to detect the card properly

Intel and AMD chipsets appear to support the Xonar series very well

As far as Vista drivers, I don't know about that, but the XP drivers are very nice and fully functional (read: worlds better than the Creative fiasco). Sound quality-wise, I've heard things in songs that I never noticed before, since I got this card. I haven't had any problems with the hardware, but I don't really torture-test my rig with ridiculous tasks. I'm a music and video type of guy

Hope this was helpful