ASUS has decided to enter the sound card market and has now taken aim for the high-end segment of the market. According to sources to DigiTimes, ASUS will present a new sound card called Xonar D2 at Computex. Even if the market for discrete sound cards has been reduced over the last few years there is still plenty of demand in the high-end segment and this is where ASUS own AV200 circuit will step in to lure customers. The manufacturing started back in May at UMC and ASUS is hoping to launch its new sound card during the third quarter at a price of 199 USD.
At VR-Zone they’ve been able to get their hands on several presentation slides from ASUS where they compare Xonar D2 to Creative X-Fi Elite and if we’re to believe this comparison things are looking mighty promising.
Except from some overall impressive specificationswith a SNR at 118dB, ASUS has added support for hardware encoding of both Dolby Digital Live and DTS Interactive. Something Creative lacks and many have been wanting. More information on the specifications of the card can be found at VR-Zone.
