asus xonar d2

I ended up selling my xonar, way overkill for my needs in the end. I can't tell any difference between my onboard and xonar D2 when I had it, but then it was an impulse buy and I only ever listen to MP3's :rolleyes:
 
lol i watch quite a bit of blue rays and i like to listen to music a lot so even if it is overkill i consider it a win/win for £50 :) think i will notice any difference between onboard when watching blue rays?
 
Who can say after reading Vader's comment. Haven't compared my recently purchased Xonar DG to on-board audio, although I'm certain it's easily better. I have compared my older X-Fi Xtreme Music to various on-board audio solutions a few times. The X-Fi is far and away better. The D2 is certainly a better card than the X-Fi, so the difference should be pretty apparent. Everyone is different though, and some can appreciate or hear more detail than others.

It's impossible to say for certain if someone will notice a significant difference between on-board audio and a sound card. Normally, one would say yes, but that's the people who find a sound card to be far superior. There are a few people who have proven that on-board is more than enough, by noticing little to no difference compared to a sound card. Until someone has used a sound card, and compared, they can't really know for sure.

I should say, quality of speaker and headphone will play a part. Although, I have seen people say they can tell the difference with cheaper speakers. I certainly noticed a difference between my X-Fi and on-board audio, using Creative T6100 5.1 speakers, a few years back, and they were crap when it came to music.
 
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powelly2010 said:
lol i watch quite a bit of blue rays and i like to listen to music a lot so even if it is overkill i consider it a win/win for £50 :) think i will notice any difference between onboard when watching blue rays?
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Will you notice a difference? It entirely depends on what you're listening on; speakers? Headphones? If so what?

If they are cheap 2.1 speakers, probably not. If it's feeding a Pioneer AV Amp which you're then outputting to a load of Hi-Fi separates, yes! (although there's a lot in-between!)
 
technically the D2 is way in front of onboard. as mentioned use decent headphones with the dedicated amp section over the unamped section in the mobo and it will shine.

you could see some fps increase in games also.


in the end a small improvement is still an improvement and pc gaming should be all about quality, with the gfx power, faster loading, high quality monitors etc..
 
FPS increases in games from using a soundcard are miniscule, as long as you have multi-core CPU.

I don't really think it's a factor in chosing a soundcard any more.
 
Uriel said:
FPS increases in games from using a soundcard are miniscule, as long as you have multi-core CPU.

I don't really think it's a factor in chosing a soundcard any more.
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fair enough.

im struggling to choose, tbh the creative ones seem to be better specced with EAX

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium 7.1
Asus Xonar D1 7.1

creative is £10 more but has eax 5.0 (ok so bfc2 is the only recent game to support it)

also the xonxar is dx2.0 as opposed to 2.5 whatever that means.

also why are there any creative based auzentek cards for sale? are they not very trusted
 
phill1978 said:
im struggling to choose, tbh the creative ones seem to be better specced with EAX
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You do realise that EAX doesn't really work in Windows 7, hence why you need to use Creative Alchemy to get everything to work.

phill1978 said:
creative is £10 more but has eax 5.0 (ok so bfc2 is the only recent game to support it)
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As far as I am aware, Battlefield Bad Company 2 isn't EAX. They use their own software driven sound engine.

phill1978 said:
also the xonxar is dx2.0 as opposed to 2.5 whatever that means.
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That's the Xonar's version of EAX and if you upgrade the software that drives the card, you'll also get the newest version (GX 2.5).
 
powelly2010 said:
whats the difference between onboard and your d1 like?
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I had ALC888 & ALC889A (which had dolby headphone.

Comparing the xonar D1 to both of the above with goldring dr50 headphones is like night and day. The D1 is vibrant and crisp, music has clarity i had never heard before and games sound awesome.

I used to have a SB live 5.1 and when that died i tried onboard... i used it for a week then bought the D1 :)
 
Difficult to emphasise just how much of an improvement the Xonar is over onboard (or a Creative). If it's just for gaming though you might find the D2 overkill and you could save some on a less expensive model. I upgraded from a DX and can notice a small improvement when listening to music. I recommended a DG to a friend who was having issues with onboard. For gaming only and he couldn't be happier with it. One very cool feature of the D2 is that the rear connectors are LED illuminated. No more climbing around the back of your computer to see which port is which. As others here have rightly stated to get the most benefit you should look to pair the card with a decent set of headphones / speakers. By opting for the D1 say, you could put the rest of your budget towards this.
 
DS3D-GX 2.0 was just a way to get older games running in hardware sound mode with up to EAX2, like they did in Win XP. 2.5 added EAX 3-5 emulation. Trouble is 2.0 was generally problem free (bar some minor problems). 2.5 is pretty much broken for a lot of old EAX games. They used to work on Xonar with EAX2. Now they only work in software mode. :(
 
been a while since i posted on this thread, but i have it now and let me tell you OMG WTF BOOM it is amazing, using my headphones and tweaking the settings a little bit the quality that comes out is the dogs balls, i think you could literally hear a pin drop from a mile away with this, maybe abit to far but to say the least it is brilliant, it gets a bit hot on the touch but nothing an extra fan in the case can't sort out, also in games like bfbc2 which uses dolby whatever it is the sound is so crisp and there is a big improvident and i can also notice quite a difference in my speakers :)
 
Sorry for the bump but I picked up a d2 on mm for dirt cheap and have to agree that the quality is a huge bump up BUT boy does this card get toasty !

It's so hot that it is directly heating up my passive 8600gt which has gone from 56C idle to 83C idle :eek:

Has anyone looked into reseating the shroud and applying active cooling ?
 
i don't have this card anymore but hell did it get hot! lol didnt have much a problem with mu gpus though, it was seated inbetween 2 5830's which maxed out at about 78C at load on top and 73 on bottom
 
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