jmke

Ever since its inception, ASUS' Xonar range of sound cards have quickly become a well-respected brand, offering excellent audio quality coupled with a burgeoning feature set to please both audiophiles and gamers alike. The company's latest foray into the audio market is perhaps the most exciting yet, and it is just that product which we'll be putting in the spotlight today.

The Xonar HDAV 1.3 Deluxe not only features all of the usual functionality you'd expect from a Xonar part, but also includes an HDMI output capable of outputting every audio format out of the sun, coupled with an additional video processor to improve video output quality to boot. It's the most fully featured discrete sound card we've ever seen here at Elite Bastards, but can it live up to its obvious potential? We take a look in our exclusive review.

"Looking at the back plate of the Xonar HDAV 1.3, we can see that much of it is taken up with two HDMI connectors - One input and one output. The input takes in the video signal from your standard graphics board, be it NVIDIA, Intel or ATI, DVI or HDMI, while the output sends out the final HDMI signal containing both video and audio (if you select it to do so within the board's driver) to your display device. Away from HDMI connectivity, the HDAV 1.3 itself features a digital SPDIF output (with support for both coaxial and optical connectivity), two analogue outputs for stereo speakers (front left and front right), and an input which can be configured as either an SPDIF in, line in or microphone port as required."

http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/ind...13&Item id=27

__________________