Asus Strix Soar

one off the best cards i have owned in 30yrs with a pc money wise its bargain paired with good headset

Being used with a 7.1 sound system I didn't really have any other choice. The software used with this is a bit sluggish at loading, but does allow switching between speakers and headphones at a click. Sadly it doesn't allow speaker fill like my on board card, which let's me play music all around. The only thing which puts this card down is the software really.

PC sounds great on this, no more background noise or complaints about my microphone on discord etc

I purchased this card hoping that it would work with Windows 10...what a bad decision! Recently bought an upgraded Alienware PC and the on-board Realtek just didn't impress. For some reason, I couldn't find the way to load the Realtek High Definition Program that would optimize the use of my 7.1 sound system. This ASUS Strix Soar 7.1 PCIe card was advertised as a good alternative to SoundBlaster. Well, it was a total let down! The card had issues with sound cutting for almost 3 years now (see internet threads on this issue) and it hasn't been fixed. It was a very annoying problem and I decided to swap this card with my old SoundBlaster XFI card from my old PC. Thanks goodness it worked for me (just needed to download the updated drivers for Windows 10). To my surprise, the ASUS card worked flawlessly with Windows 7 Pro! I wouldn't recommend this card unless you're still using Windows 7.

Good sound balance for my music preferences. Basic sound (not 7.1) works without issue in unmodified Linux (Ubuntu 16.x), with 7.1 working through pulseaudio.