Best 5.1/7.1 Sound Card that I could find

[The_ShadowWw]

I have been looking for a sound card for my 7.1 system as the my X-Fi Xtreme Music started to occasionally produce artefact sounds

the cards I considered are listed below

 I really want a creative card but all of them are old, designed in 2008, the currently sold Audigy RX is even a downgrade from the X-Fi Titanium series and you can only get those refurbished or used,

 

So seeking to find out if I can switch to an ASUS cards things to consider:

• the specs of hardware for both asus and Creative are top notch 
• EAX is only used in some legacy games so creative has no edge here, as ASUS also has it's GX 3.0 emulation (it's almost on par with creatives DPS chip and alchemy)  thou I don't know if the new ASUS cards listed below support it
• CMSS-3D vs upmix I only used creatives option witch works perfectly, actually this was the reason I decided to get a discrete card as the integrated realtek chip  or software on my asus motherboard produced  sound artefact when upmixig 
• Drivers, the sound drivers for ASUS are awful https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?93764-How-is-Asus-new-soundcard-the-AE-Sonic-Studio 

 

Sp the irony is that the best 5.1/7.1 card is the 2008 Creative X-Fi Titanium line,

Titanium                                                            16 MB RAM

Titanium Professional Audio PCI Express        Asia-only variant of X-Fi Titanium with minijack-to-2RCA cable and EMI shield 16 MB RAM
Titanium Fatal1ty Professional                          Essentially a Titanium Fatal1ty Champion card without the I/O drive box.  64 MB RAM

Titanium Fatal1ty Champion                             UAA support and TOSLINK in/out added. 64 MB RAM

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_X-Fi

 

Asus cards I considered: 
Asus Xonar AE 7.1

ASUS Strix RAID Pro 7.1

ASUS ROG Xonar Phoebus 7.1

 

I think this is what Linus should have mentioned in his video, as stereo setups have a lot of choices these days 

 

[EsaT]

5 hours ago, The_ShadowWw said:

I have been looking for a sound card for my 7.1 system as the my Audigy LE started to occasionally produce artefact sounds

the cards I considered are listed below

 I really want a creative card but all of them are old, designed in 2008, the currently sold Audigy RX is even a downgrade from the X-Fi Titanium series and you can only get those refurbished or used,

 

 

Asus cards I considered: 
Asus Xonar AE 7.1

ASUS Strix RAID Pro 7.1

ASUS ROG Xonar Phoebus 7.1

Well, that Audigy has certainly served long enough to justify its retirement.

After X-Fi Creative changed names of its above budget level cards.

Though Recon3D was total facepalm for its price using integrated DAC of sound chip.

Sound Blaster Z serie of 2012 got separate D/A converters, but headphone output is still at standard level.

 

Fair year old Sound BlasterX AE-5 again has besides top level DAC overall best headphone output of any sound card, with very low output impedance and very good current/power/voltage capability.

 

 

Xonar AE is below mid end card, with lower D/A conversion quality than SB Z.

Strix Raid Pro has total facepalm level 100 ohm output impedance, just like Xonar DX/D2X cards, making it not so great for headphones below 250 ohms.

But at least headphone output is short circuit protected if you want to stick iron nail into it...

Xonar Phoebus line got ditched apparently because maker of its audio chip, C-Media, decided to pull the plug from support of that chip.

(Asus relies on -Media to keep updating sound chip drivers)
 

[KaminKevCrew]

Is there any particular reason that you don't want to get something that's external?

 

You could either get a DAC/amp combo from the likes of Schiit or something, and run some software surround sound (believe it or not, ALL surround sound that doesn't come from physical speakers in a room is software controlled, so it's not like you're missing out on anything by having a software solution as opposed to a software/hardware one.)

 

OR, you could grab something like the Sennheiser GSX1000, or whatever their gaming amp/DAC combos are called.

[EsaT]

9 hours ago, KaminKevCrew said:

OR, you could grab something like the Sennheiser GSX1000, or whatever their gaming amp/DAC combos are called.

That's genuine extremely overpriced gaming hype product:

Its DAC is worser than in budget level Audigy Fx/Xonar DGX and headphone output as beefy as in standard Realtek chip.

[The_ShadowWw]

17 hours ago, KaminKevCrew said:

Is there any particular reason that you don't want to get something that's external?

 

You could either get a DAC/amp combo from the likes of Schiit or something, and run some software surround sound (believe it or not, ALL surround sound that doesn't come from physical speakers in a room is software controlled, so it's not like you're missing out on anything by having a software solution as opposed to a software/hardware one.)

 

OR, you could grab something like the Sennheiser GSX1000, or whatever their gaming amp/DAC combos are called.

I have 8 speekers 7 small ones and 1 sub, so I need a 7.1 sound card, for 8 physical output channels