Auzentech X-FI HomeTheater Opinions?

[senvae]

Hey people,

I rarely come to the sound card portion of this forum, but as a home theater enthusiast, I need to clarification on a product before I buy it.

http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-fi_hometheater_hd.php

I was wondering if anyone out there owns an Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater HD sound card, who could tell me their experience setting it up with their hardware. I want to purchase this card to replace my currently set-up Auzentech Prelude X-Fi, so I may reap the benefits of full blown Blu-Ray playback. But before I do, I wish to ask a few questions, since the professional reviews have left me with mixed feelings.

1- Is it true that Nvidia GPUs are not compatible with it?

2- Would I be able to have DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD if I used the HDMI out for sound only, and used another HDMI to plug the GPU to the TV? Or does everything have to be output through one single HDMI?

3- If this card is plugged via PCIe x1, would I be able to retain my SLIx2 in PCIe x16 for the 2 graphic cards on a 980a nvidia chipset? Or would it drop my PCIe slots to x16,x8,x8?

I hope someone can shed some light on this sound card for me...

 

[goldorak]

Hi senvae,

I am not an expert, but i did buy this card the moment it was in the market. From my experience this sound card is excellent. I use it mainly for Bluray watching and sometimes for music listening and rarely for games, but it works well for all. I connected it to a pioneer SC-07 elite receiver and i can safely say that the sound out of it is definitely better then when connecting a dvd player directly to the receiver by a great extent. I am mainly using the HDMI out to the receiver, and as well i connected the PC through HDMI to the screen directly, so to get to your 2nd question, i never intended to check if when using the direct out to PC for video and audio through receiver if the truehd is still on, but i assume (99% sure) that it is. because you still get truehd through the sound card, the video is through the video card.

For the first and third questions, i really cant answer as i have a single ati card (working pretty fine).

I hope i helped a little, but i can recommend this card safely if used with cyberlink powerdvd of course to get the HD audio. it is a very classy card.

regards

 

[senvae]

Thank you very much Goldorak. I was actually thinking of using the soundcard and video on two separate HDMi cables, so if that is possible like you said, the Nvidia issue shouldn't be a factor anymore.

I'm not worried about the gaming sound since I noticed the gaming features are the same as my current Prelude soundcard by the same makers.

I guess I still need to do some research on the motherboard chipset and the SLI workings to make sure the card wouldn't interfere with my current excellent performance.

 

[Guest]

Hey people,


2- Would I be able to have DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD if I used the HDMI out for sound only, and used another HDMI to plug the GPU to the TV? Or does everything have to be output through one single HDMI?

Also remember that for DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD its needs to be on a legitimate BluRay DVD and the soundcard has to be routed to a AV Receiver or amp that supports DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD via the HDMI cable.

If you have any more questions just ask

 

[senvae]

Also remember that for DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD its needs to be on a legitimate BluRay DVD and the soundcard has to be routed to a AV Receiver or amp that supports DTS Master Audio and Dolby True HD via the HDMI cable.

If you have any more questions just ask

Actually I am routing this HDMI wire to a Yamaha HTR6160, so I have the proper equipment. The receiver supports HDMI and HD sound from both DTS and Dolby. I will also point out while we're discussing it, I have a 1080p TV connected to my graphic cards already, Power DVD 9 Ultra, and a BD ROM. I already watch legit Blu-Rays on it, I am planning to make this soundcard the last step to make my computer completely BR firendly.

My final question that remains unanswered is: Will the 980a Nvidia chipset, on my Asus M4N HT motherboard, support 2xSLI at x16 speed for my video cards while the 3rd PCIe slot delivers x1 performance for the soundcard. I know that if I were to plug 3 video cards in triple SLI it would render them to x16, x8, x8, so I don't want this PCIe soundcard to slow down my currently great gaming performance.