ASUS Xonar DGX 5.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Gaming Audio Card

Pros: It didn't fall apart when physically hooking it up to my desktop

Cons: Like other posters I couldn't get the drivers to install. I disabled my onboard sound and uninstalled all driver..still couldn't get it to work. This was a complete was of my time and money. Should have listened to other reviews! I'm running Windows 7 64bit

Pros: Easy installation. Drivers installed easily.

Cons: Had playback issues with some games.* Microphone issues with my headset.**

Other Thoughts: *I am an avid League of Legends player. My on-board audio went out randomly one day. I did some research and decided to buy a new audio card. I found this one, the specs looked good, so I decided to buy it. The card was delivered fine and packaging was fine. I installed the card with ease, and downloaded the drivers. I was excited to get back to gaming with sound again (I do not have speakers, just a headset). I got on League of Legends, and right away something was different. I would hear game sounds perfectly fine for about 5 seconds. Then, SOME sounds would just go out (completely muted) for another 5 seconds. It was very irritating. I opened the Xonar DGX Audio Center and modified some settings, which fixed the problem a little bit. It still happened, but not as often as before. I took my headset and plugged it into my laptop and played League of Legends to see if it was just a problem with my headset, but it wasn't. The sound was perfectly fine on my laptop. I just decided to deal with it for a while, thinking the problem might go away on its own.
**The problem got worse and worse as the days passed, and when I tried to tweak my settings again today, my microphone completely stopped working. Playback was fine, though. Once again I plugged my headset into my laptop, the microphone worked fine. I doubt that this is a compatibility issue, as I have an ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 motherboard. I am not sure if this audio card is just defective, or if something in my settings got messed up and I am just blind to it.

Pros: Very surprised at the clarity this card gives over on board audio, would definitely recommend this to anyone especially for the price.

Cons: None

Pros: Great sound in all of my games. Music sounds great. Good, clear bass. Can't beat it at this price.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: Many have complained about driver install issues. I had a problem until I disabled the onboard sound and uninstalled the realtek drivers. After that, the drivers installed flawlessly.

Pros: Sounds so much better than the realtek ALC 892 that is on my motherboard. Bass is much cleaner and more powerful. The integrated amps help out with that immensely, especially when using headphones. The software control for it is useful. Supports front panel audio.

Cons: Sound cards? Ain't nobody got time for that!

Other Thoughts: One final note, if you are using headphones, you have to go into the software to change the impedance level to 64ohm to make the headphone output volume loud enough.

Pros: low price, nice features

Cons: drivers wouldn't install on windows 7 no matter what I did - tried downloading latest drivers from Asus website etc. googled the error and found people have had issues with windows 7 drivers with no solution. newegg returned for credit and I installed another better known brand with zero issues

Pros: Cheap. Nice bundled software. Puts out 5.1. Unlike what some of the reviewers have said, this card does put out 5.1, although not through SPDIF. You just need a "multichannel" home theater receiver that has discrete inputs for each of the channels, as most receivers do these days.

Cons: The fact that 5.1 does not work through SPDIF is conveniently left out in the manual... I am sure this was not a simple oversight.

Other Thoughts: In retrospect, I would have chipped in $20 more for a Dolby Digital Live card. Oh well.

Pros: PCI-E X1, 5.1 channel, Optical and HDMI connectors. Smart Volume Normalization (SVN).

Cons: Driver may seem a bit unstable. See other thoughts.

Other Thoughts: Although I have only had the card a couple days, I must say not bad for $40. The Smart Volume Normalization works very well, it brought out sounds that I was not aware existed in music I played.

Also, this doesn't happen too often, but the Driver CD bundled actually contained the latest available driver. Whenever I buy new hardware I usually disregard the CDs and go straight to the manufacturer website for the latest drivers.

Per the cons, the driver seemed to malfunction the first couple times I installed it. After rebooting the machine, I lost my sound...twice. It was remedied by going to Device Manager and uninstalling the card and doing a refresh to re-detect the card. It has not happened a third time...yet.

Pros: Sounds great on headphones and this sound should only be purchased for headphones uses only

Cons: When I plugged it in and booted up my monitor would not work. After flashing the Bios to the latest version i got it to work, but not 5.1 sound to my receiver. After talking to Asus support for hours they decided they had no idea what why it was not working and said to return it. Turns out that the card does not have the ability to send a Dolby Digital Live or dts signal and therefor can not do true 5.1 sound even thought the support guy at Asus said it should and that the card must be defective. DO NOT BE FOOLED IT DOES NOT DO TRUE 5.1

Other Thoughts: After a very difficult install process the card does do what it is supposes to, but it is deceptive in how they word it. Even the Asus tech thought it could do more then than it can. I can not stress enough that you can NOT GET TRUE 5.1 SOUND FROM THIS CARD due to the lack of Dolby Digital Live or dts encoders.

I give this card 2 eggs rather than one because it does do what it is supposed to, but I only give it a max of 2 because it was extremely difficult to install and is misleading in its true capabilities. I ended up returning this item and getting the Creative Sound Blaster Z. it was almost 3x more expensive, but was very easy to install and does exactly what it says it does. In my opinion the extra money is well spent because if i would have went with it in the first place i would have not wasted hours of time on the phone and internet.

Pros: Sounds beautiful. I'm not an audiophile, rather a musician. I'm picky about things like EQ (leave it alone!), frequency response, and noise levels. I want to hear EVERYTHING, and with the tone that was intended. This card delivers amazingly well for a budget chip. Front panel adapter was a great perk. I will say I'm getting a lot better base response than I did before.

Cons: Driver installation was a bit clunky. I didn't have to deal with other sound drivers, just rebooted when I got the 'card not installed' error. The actual chip is great, as are the drivers themselves. Of course the instructions are limited too. A bigger manual would have been nice.

Other Thoughts: My realtek chip on my motherboard died, and rather than go to the bother of returning the motherboard, I just ordered this card. I can't remember quite how the old chip sounded, but this is beautiful. Base and Treble are obviously more defined.

While waiting for this to arrive, I had to give up my full range Creative set and switch to a cheap pair of USB backup speakers. It hurt. What a relief when this fellow arrived, and got everything plugged back in. First reaction: A grin and a sigh.