ASUS Xonar D2X 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card

Pros: Good quality sound the first year or so.
Lighted connections are a nice touch.

Cons: EMI. LOOOOOOOTS of it after two years' use.
Included software apparently does nothing.
Connections labeled wrong.

Other Thoughts: I originally moved from a Sound Blaster card because it had terrible Windows 7 support. The DX2 worked great for a time, but then it started having driver problems out of no where. Although I solved these, it's now just recently spewing non-stop EMI whining into my 5.1 headset through the front channel.

I can confirm it's because of the shoddy input connections on the back because wiggling my front channel connector temporarily fixes the problem - but I can't sit at my desk constantly holding the cord in place.

These problems and the ones I've been having with my even younger ASUS motherboard considered, it's looking like a very good idea to stay the hell away from ASUS entirely.

Pros: The best audio card on the market. No buzz,crystal clear sound.
Windows 7 X64 works great with it.

Cons: None

Pros: Audio quality is great. Timing is another issue...

Cons: Silly issues such as audio lag and an awesome clicking noise coming from the physical card whenever you reboot. At the end of the day, not really much better than built-in motherboard audio, and a waste of money.

Pros: Sound quality is great.I currently have this set up with the Logitech Z 5500-5.1 and sounds really nice.GO TO OTHER THOUGHTS

Cons: Asus support gets the -1 Egg.Support out of a possible 10 score would get a 6.5.Not great but not bad.The drivers for this sound card would not work properly,in other words they are outdated and do not perform well,so-SEE OTHER THOUGHTS-------------------------

Other Thoughts: For the last few builds I have done,I have had nothing but problems with the sound cards,at least at first I thought it was the sound cards being faulty.I installed the drivers and set up my sound card(tweaks)to my liking before I downloaded the drivers for my graphics cards.For some reason the Asus sound card and EVGA GTX # 480 GPU drivers conflicted with one another. I have no idea why.I also did not use the drivers that came with this card.I was reading a review(a few people below me here)and this person said to download Xonar Unified Drivers.It fixed my issues and I am thankful to the N/A person(name not available).

Pros: Easy to setup. Sound output is great. Blu-Ray experience is amplified with the use of this card.

Cons: the hardware is a tad long. Be aware of where you want to stick this card, or if you are even able to stick insert the card. Default Asus drivers are outdated. Hope you have available power cords. You'll need one.

Other Thoughts: Owned it since June 10' and I had NO problem with this card (and I had a fair share of sound cards in the past from Creative to Turtle Beach). It barely missed some of my boards chipset heatsink. While the default drivers does the job, I recommend getting a unified 3rd party Asus driver for this card. Other than hardware constraints, the D2X is one of the best sound cards I ever bought! The setup is simple. The sound virtualization is easy to use. I Highly recommend to set the virtual to 7.1 if you have at least a 5.1 speaker system. You can drag & set your virtual speakers and user position to match however your speakers are setup. Its a extremely nice setup for the money.

Pros: Amazing card in every way, perfect for game and home theater environments. Well worth the price tag.

Cons: ASUS outdated and broken Drivers.

Other Thoughts: Dont use the drivers supplied by ASUS or the ones on their website. They simply dont deliver.

Search for Unified Xonar Drivers, these are made by a third party and work far better then what ASUS can supply.

Pros: Looks really cool with the lights.

Cons: Drivers are terrible, channels (LF, RF, etc) are messed up, won't play surround sound when it should.

Other Thoughts: I have had this card for a while now... but wished I had gotten it refunded before it was too late. Instead, I decided I would try to figure out what the problem was myself. I wouldn't recommend this card to anyone.

Pros: Well, it looked nice, installation was a breeze. Other than that, NOTHING.

Cons: Did everything in my power, used the knowledge of the web to be able to get the analog channels to come up correctly. By that I mean LF is really LEFT FRONT, not REAR RIGHT! No matter how you plugged it in, it never, ever came out of the speakers it was supposed to. I gave up after a week.

Other Thoughts: For all the power this thing has, for all its features, was it really that hard for the engineers to make sure the analog plugs actually worked correctly when plugged into a powered speaker system such as the Logitech Z-530? I bought this as an alternative to Sound Blaster, and guess what? I ended up buying a Sound Blaster to replace this.

Pros: Everything I said before

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: People have said that it doesn't work with Win-7 64 bit. I have Win-7 64 bit and this sound card works flawlessly. If you install the software and drivers from the CD, it WORKS flawlessly. I don't know what the heck people are saying about the drivers, they're the best I've seen for a sound card, easily. The install quickly and work. I think people having problems are just being stupid enough not to get rid of the drivers and software from their previous sound cards. DIFFERENT SOUND CARD SOFTWARES DON'T LIKE EACH OTHER, THEY HAVE TO BE REMOVED BEFORE INSTALLING A NEW SOUND CARD. I did this and my sound card works perfectly. AGAIN, DO NOT LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO DID SOMETHING WRONG AND SAY THAT THE SOUND CARD SOFTWARE AND DRIVERS DON'T WORK. I talked to a friend of mine who I suggested this sound card to and he bought it and had these problems; I went over to his house and his creative drivers and software were still installed. I removed them and it worked immediately. IT WORKS.

Pros: Sound quality, easy setup, good software, nice packaging, accessories, manual, customer support, build quality, LED input lights, looks great, 7.1 support, digital I/O's, 24-bit/192 kHz capable, sound quality (I can't stress this enough).

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: DO NOT LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO SAY THE SOFTWARE IS BULKY. That isn't a con, it just means that you get a lot for your money. The software is incredibly easy to set up and the card itself is nice looking and extremely sturdily built. This is the best sounding audio card I've ever had! I have used Auzentech and Creative (same software and had problems with both), I bought the HT Omega Claro XT ($249) and the Asus D2X at the same time, and the Asus sounded better, hands down. I'm connected by a digital coaxial to a Denon 2311ci home theater receiver and a 5.1 system and it sounds amazing! I've connected analog computer speakers and this sound card makes them sound as good as they possibly can (Logitech Z-5300, Bose 5 companion, Altec 2.1, Creative Gigaworks T3, and a couple others). The point is, this is very possibly the best investment I've made for my computer. If you appreciate high quality audio from movies, games, and especially music, get this sound card. You won't be disappointed.