Hi Guys,
Just wanted to give a little review on EVGA''s Sound card. I have owned many sound cards over the past 15 years so I have personal experiences with most mainstream cards out there and ones that are not around anymore.
Many we good and some were great. Alot of sound cards potential get killed by bad drivers or buggy software. I have had minor issues with the Nu-Audio software before but nothing that would impact sound quality but last two updates fixed most of them. I also had a issue with hearing noise/feedback from the GPU when under load but that is just a unfortunate potential of buying any kind of internal sound card. That issue all depends of many factors like bad or poor grounding somewhere in the PC it's self or at the outlet in the home. Could be from any one of the components in the PC. Most issues are from Poor grounding or the motherboard its self and how it supply's the voltage and where that voltage passes though on the motherboard to the PCI lanes or South Bridge. Me myself used a Sata power for the sound card with nothing else on that rail and moved it to the farthest slot away from my GPU and Haven't really noticed it after doing so.Any PCI-E slot will work with this card doesn't matter the size of it because the pin out layout is the same. x4x8x16 just means how many lanes that slot is. So if you the GPU is installed in the very first slot and you have a PCI-E slot available at the very bottom, Doesn't matter if it is x4,x8x,16 you can install the card there and that helps tremendously. Now to this cards sound and performance. The Nu-audio card is the best sound card I have owned. Very powerful Headphone amp stock and swap-able op-amps. I swapped the stock one OP275 to the LT-1469 Same op-amp as the pro. Stock one had a little bit to harsh of highs for me but that all depends on what headphones you are using also. I notice how much the change in sound my desktop speakers had when switching from the BlasterX G5 and was a little surprised on what sounds and notes I was hearing with the Nu-Audio compared to the G5. There were sounds I didn't even know where in the song to begin with. I myself am very pleased with this card and would recommend to someone wanting a high end sound card because of the price. But you get what you pay for when it comes to this card. Don't know how it compares to the Pro that came out but this card is a solid card with excellent sound quality especially with High-Res audio and Gaming. Price was a little steep for me but said what the hell, bought it and am very happy with doing so. EVGA solid product here.
Keep in mind everyone has their own personal experience and opinions when review something and this is just mine. Headphones I used with this card was a A pair of Audio Technica M50x's and Beyer Dynamic DT990 Pro (250)ohm and Speakers are Logitech z623 2.1