DIAMOND XtremeSound XS51 5.1 Channels 16-bit 48KHz PCI Interface Sound Card

Pros: none !!!

Cons: software will not install on Windows 7 platform. even the drivers on diamond site will not install !!!

Other Thoughts: Tried to install drivers with disk included & followed the steps on installing card with no success. Setup Instructions do not work at all. Went to diamond site, downloaded the drivers there, & still no success. Kept saying wrong platform / operating system. Went in the software folder, tried to download the Windows 7 drivers by their self, still got same error. Please note, that Diamond use to make awesome sound cards, which worked great, & was easy to install. This series is junk. Do not recommend !!

Pros: -Works when it wants

Cons: - very poor driver capability at the time and over the years, did not work in win7, maybe the latest drivers are win 7 com.. but even last year it had issues.
- Not such great sound
- Took time to get it to run (after driver fishing and re-installing

Pros: Cheap and available everywhere.

Cons: Poor Quality and software ... I choose quiet.

Pros: Makes sound when it works. Mic is clear.

Cons: Starts with static and then eventually cuts out completely. Only happens after the computer has been on for a while. I used to turn off the computer and turn it back on to get it to come back to life. Now driver reinstalling, pulling and putting the card back in and checking for updates etc this thing is just more and more random.

Other Thoughts: Want to have mediocre reliability at best , get this. NO thank you C-Media

Pros: I am more about graphics than audio. All I wanted was a card that worked good enough and had Vista 32bit compatiable drivers. This audio card sounds GREAT! No problem installing the provided drivers AT ALL!

Cons: Does not make toast.

Other Thoughts: Running Vista 32bit with a 2.1 speaker system.

Pros: TL;DR - Read my "other thoughts" if you are looking for a solution. :-)

I've had this sound card since December of 2008 when I realized after finally putting together my then new machine that the onboard audio failed. This card has served me well, working flawlessly on Windows XP 32 and 64-bit, Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows 7 64-bit, and even Ubuntu.

Cons: No 24-bit/96KHz support. However, it is a $20 card, and some people have got it on sale for as cheap as $10 or less, so really... you can't complain. Spend another $10 or so if you want 24-bit. No big deal.

The Diamond XS51 is really a re-badged C-Media card, and this (as you can see) causes much confusion when it comes to finding the right driver. They should update the supplied disc with the right drivers as they are easily available on the Internet. The amount of 32-bit XP users are dwindling, Diamond!

Other Thoughts: If you use any decent hardware monitoring/benchmarking program (such as PC Wizard) you will easily be able to determine who actually makes the chipset upon accessing your sound card info. It is a C-Media Electronics CMI8738/C3DX to be exact. Do a search for that and you will find drivers. To all of you who are frustrated and cannot get this to work, that is your answer. Do not rely on the supplied disc to get you anywhere. Now that you have the model number you should have no problems. I've gotta say though, XP 32-bit, Windows 7 64-bit, and Ubuntu found the driver automatically for me. I do however recall having problems in XP x64 and Vista 64-bit. Not sure why everyone else is running into problems. Perhaps your card is a variant and uses a slightly different chipset? All the more reason to download a free hardware info utility like PC Wizard to see who really makes it and then search for the driver. Hope this helps.

Pros: Cost

Cons: Does not work under Win7

Other Thoughts: I picked up this cheap-o sound card on a whim to replace my onboard sound card. After trying 3 different PCI slots Windows 7 finally acknowledged it's existence, but refused to allow it to be used due to unsigned/expired controls. After rebooting with the card installed in the PCI slot, both Nvidia 9800GT and Radeon 5770 drivers failed to load. Upon removing the card and rebooting, the gfx card drivers were acknowledged and peace restored.

This may work on older windows versions, but not on Seven.

Pros: Cheap and easy fix for onboard audio that died. Clean recording via the mic input, decent mixer software. Kept me from having to rebuild my xp pro htpc.

Cons: Line in exhibits hiss. Was a very slight drop in overall audio quality from the built in HD audio on my asus mb

Other Thoughts: I can't say anything about win7/vista drivers since I don't plan on changing my htpc over; it works too well like it is.

Pros: Cheap. Worked for what I needed it for. I didn't run into any problems installing the card and getting the drivers working.

Cons: Never used it to it's full potential, so I never ran into any problems. I got the card in case I wanted to add a 5.1 set-up. Never did though, only ran 2 speakers.

Other Thoughts: I bought this card after my mothers PC onboard audio jack burned out. I just needed something cheap to hook up a 2 speaker set-up and also had 5.1 in case she wanted to add surround sound.

Pros: The card eventually worked for what I needed it for. After buying a Logitech X-530 (something like that) I was unable to hear sound from all speakers and needed a new sound card that supported 5.1 surround sound. I found this and bought it, mainly because of the other reviews and price.

Cons: The microphone jack never worked for me. At all. In order for other people to hear ME and not screeching and static I had to re-enable the onboard sound device and plug the microphone in there. The drivers are buggy and hard to navigate through. There's no "Speaker Fill" option (like Realtek driver config has) which didn't render the best sound in my speaker system. It still gave me sound through all speakers, though. Their support is some of the worst that I've seen. I'll sacrifice USA support for actual support any day. I had a question about a driver installation issue that was never answered. Ever. I ended up solving it on my own. When I tested the Windows 7 Beta (RC1) they had absolutely no drivers for Windows 7, I was told by someone on a gaming forum that my best bet would be to install the Windows Vista drivers on the Windows 7 installation. I got sound, but had no control over the configuration utility. If you actively beta test major software applications don't get this card.

Other Thoughts: Because of the horrible support and lack of decent drivers I docked off two eggs. The card is great if you need a quick and cheap replacement for something or if you want to upgrade from 2 channel audio to 5.1 channel audio. As always, Newegg provided excellent service and support for this product, the price was low, the shipping was fast and cheap, and from previous experiences I know that any interaction with Newegg support would have been quick and painless. Great job, newegg.