Which sound card is best for music and has optical out?

N9ne · 21 Mar 2008 at 01:46

I'm having difficulty finding a sound card with optical out.

Any recommendations for good sound cards for music with optical out?

My new mobo will be able to handle PCI-Express so that is not a problem.

james.miller · 21 Mar 2008 at 10:19

if you are using spdif output for music the soundcard becomes largely irrelivant. the onboard sound would be fine assuming it'll do a bit-perfect 44.1khz output.

N9ne · 21 Mar 2008 at 16:50

That's true but I won't always be doing this. I like to have the options as I move around a lot and have a range of audio equipment requiring different connections.

Is the Asus Xonar DX2 recommended? It's not clear whether it has optical out?

james.miller · 21 Mar 2008 at 16:59

it does. it has combined optical/coax digital input and ouput connectors. they are very good cards. i have the d2 pci version

N9ne · 21 Mar 2008 at 20:05

Also, this PCI-E vs. PCI thing. I'm going to be getting a PCI-E mobo but I've been out of the loop with all this PCI-E stuff (haven't built in over two years!!) - are there no PCI slots on the PCI-E mobos? What's stopping me from getting the PCI version which is much cheaper? Surely for the significant future it will be fine...?