For a true audiophile, an onboard sound solution just won’t cut it, nor will it get the most out of high end speakers.  The ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 Slim can help, thanks to a pair of HDMI ports, Dolby Digital TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio surround sound formats are both fully supported.  The card also drops CPU usage to almost zero for sound processing, a great advantage if you are running a low power or underclocked CPU.  Benchmark Reviews put the card and its software through a series of tests to try to define its performance a little less subjectively, something that can be hard to do with an audio review. 

“You don’t have to be an audiophile to appreciate the enhanced surround sound effects from Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio found on most Blu-ray Disc movie discs over the standard Dolby Digital or DTS formats found on standard DVD movie discs. The lossless audio compression formats and/or the two extra channels of sound output really adds a significant amount of realism to the whole movie watching experience. The problem is most HTPC owners don’t have the ability to experience these enhanced formats due to a lack of sound cards on the market that can support these formats. Benchmarkreviews has the ASUS Xonar HDAV 1.3 Slim sound card that does just that. Benchmark Reviews have put it through a series of tests and have determined whether HTPC owners can rejoice or not.”

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk