Asus Xonar DSX 7.1 PCIe vs Asus H97 Pro onboard sound

[paraver]

Hi there.

I've got an Asus H97 Pro. Does anyone can tell about the quality of the onboard sound card? It will be necessary/better to buy a sound card (Asus Xonar DSX 7.1)?

Thanks in advance,

 

[XL-R8R]

The short answer: the DSX will be better.

However, the answer of if you need a soundcard really depends on what you will do with your rig.

 

[INSTG8R]

No contest really... Xonar would be easily and noticeably better.

 

[Kursah]

Another thing to consider is audio tuning, if you plan to use an EQ...onboard software EQ's tend to suck compared to Audio card EQ's. And if you plan to use the digital output or not...then the output quality of the op amps and analogue outputs means little. If you're using the 3.5mm jacks or other analogue connections.

I still use my now old Auzentech Forte (RIP Auzentech) as I prefer it's Creative Console EQ that I've used for the last almost 10 years to any other EQ I've tried on PC. I use digital output. I have never used the ALC1200 or whatever audio chipset on my Asus Z87 Pro, which I'm assuming has something simlar or slightly lesser quality than the Z97 derivative. Modern onboard chipsets have impressed me recently with some small gaming/media systems I have built...the most notable mention goes to the Biostar B85S3+.

You could order the card from Amazon or Newegg, try it and send it back should you find you don't have a need for it. While it should have better sound quality and output than an onboard solution for a few reasons (dedicated hardware tends to be better right?), it also depends on the user. No sense in spending money on something you don't really need or really notice its effect on your experience. Try your onboard, and then if you decide that's not good enough, buy a sound card and try that...the Xonar is a good introduction to sound cards, and they get much more expensive from there depending on what you want for features and output.

 

[btarunr]

With onboard audio solutions, Gigabyte's newer AMPUP looks most solid. They have a real preamp/amp stage, electrolytic capacitors, and an EMI-shielded 115 dBA CODEC, which you can run using Realtek's drivers, if you don't trust Creative. It will sound more natural than the Xonar DSX.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I was very tempted and almost got an ASUS Xonar DS I saw on sale for $33. It was going to be just for the purpose of passing DTS through to my AVR via it's DTS Connect support.

I'm kinda glad I didn't though because recently in shopping for upgrade parts for my next platform change, I noticed there's a lot of MBs now with Realtek ALC1150, which has DTS Connect support.

Don't get me wrong, when sound cards were much more popular than they are now there were a lot of good choices and driver support was much better, not to mention there being some fairly good PC speakers too if you wanted to go analog.

Things have changed a lot though, and now the common solution is passthrough to an AVR via digital out, which is also not prone to EMI problems like analog out. ALC1150 is Realtek's most advanced onboard audio chip, has a 115 dB SNL, and is appearing on high end X99 MBs.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Asus Xonar DX (ASUS AV100 with Cirrus-Logic DAC) > Asus Xonar DSX (ASUS AV66) > Realtek ALC1150 > Realtek ALC892 (which H97 Pro has)

 

[WhiteNoise]

Depends on what you are doing. If your onboard outputs what you want; as in 192/24 or whatever satisfies you and you are in turn sending a digital signal out to a dac and amp or amp with dac, reciever etc... then the on board is all you need.

If you are using the onboard or sound card to directly be responsible for sound to speakers or headphones the the stand alone card is the best choice in your situation.