Asus Strix RAID DLX 7.1 Gaming Sound Card Review.
One of the rookie mistakes most gaming PC builders make is to not prioritize a good quality sound card on their list. No matter how advanced on-board sound have become, it's no match to a high-grade sound card to truly appreciate the level of detail and immersion that modern games have achieved over the past few years. Imagine playing Battlefield 1 on crappy on-board audio that makes everything sound like it's coming from a tin can? It's criminal.
As such, the Asus Strix RAID DLX 7.1 sound card that we are looking at today should definitely be on your radar. With its 124dB signal-to-noise ratio and "audiophile-grade" DAC, the Strix is an exceptional performer that will truly bring out the best from your games and movies.
Design
The Strix RAID DLX (shortened to Strix from hereon) comes with a sound card and a volume control box. The card maintains Asus' fascination with the owl-like design, although the shroud over the card serves another purpose other than looking cool: it also acts as an EMI shield to protect it from interference from other machinery inside your PC. The owl eye lights up, by the way, so if you've modeled your PC around a dazzling array of lights, the Strix won't disappoint on that front. The card requires a PCI slot on your motherboard along with a 6-pin power adapter, so make sure your PSU has enough juice to power the device.
Asus uses the CM6632AX audio processor and ESS 9016 DAC for the Strix, which are some of the industry leading components and should provide a far better listening experience than your run-of-the-mill Realtek on-board equipment. The sound card also sports a 600ohm headphone amplifier so if you are running any of the audiophile-grade headphones from Sennheiser, Beyer Dynamics and the likes, the Strix should be able to easily drive them.
In terms of I/O, the sound card has the following connectors: Mic/Line in, headphone, box link, front, rear, center, side+SPDIF out. So if you are running both a home theater speaker system and headphones, the Strix should be able to handle them quite easily.
Coming to the control box, it's sort of a convenience accessory that prevents you from reaching around the back of your PC to change inputs. It's a rather nice looking device despite being a space-hog, and has a volume controller (which can be pressed to change between inputs), a headphone and mic/line in jacks, and a box link connector. There is also a RAID button, which allows you to activate and control features like Bass Boost, microphone volume, EQ or Virtual surround sound options.
Software and Performance
The sound card comes with the Strix Sonic Studio software which allows you to adjust every setting there is to the device. The single page interface is a solid design choice as you don't have to navigate through series of menus to get to the setting you want.
From the software, you can change the output device, control the volume and the playback configuration, along with adjusting features like Bass Boost, Voice Clarity, Compressor, Virtual Surround, Reverb, Noise Gate, Perfect Voice, and more. Let's go through some of the important features of the Strix:
- Performance: I already have a Creative Xi-Fi sound card on my motherboard so the Strix wasn't too much of a jump in terms of audio quality. That's a good thing because the Xi-Fi is a solid card in itself and the Strix matches its performance with ease. Comparing it to the on-board audio, the difference is night and day, with the Strix producing crystal clear tones, measured bass, and pitch perfect highs. I paired the sound card with the Sennhesier HD598, which is an entry-level audiophile-grade headphones, and the experience in movies and games were excellent. I am playing a lot of Overwatch these days, and in a competitive online game like this spatial awareness is of utmost importance. The Strix was able to create a massive soundstage on these open-back headphones which helped me in not only guessing the enemy's location with fair accuracy, but also immerse me into the game.
- Virtual Surround: This is one of the biggest selling point of the Strix but honestly, I couldn't hear any difference with it turned on. If there was a difference, it's very subtle and went completely unnoticed by me. I paired the Surround option with the RAID button on the control box and tried turning it on and off extensively mid-game, and nothing. At the very least, it doesn't dilute the sound too much to not have it turned on. Most virtual surround emulations creates a fake soundstage that makes everything sound distant and hollow, but that's not the case with the Strix. So if you hear a difference, at least the sound quality will remain the same.
- Profiles: You can select from a number of profiles like Music, Communication, Gaming, FPS, RPG, Movies, etc., with each focusing on the different requirements of the sound to make it pop. For example, the Music profile will have a slightly amped up Bass Boost and Voice Clarity for punchy sound and clear vocals, while the reverb will be set to 'Live' so that it feels like you are at a live show. The Movie profile has similar settings except the reverb is set to 'Theater'. While I enjoyed toying around with the profiles, with each delivering a distinct sound signature, I ultimately settled on the Flat profile with all features turned off except Bass Boost to allow my Sennheiser HD598 to do the heavy lifting and render sound without any coloring. The headphones suffers from a slightly weak bass so it was nice to support it via the Sonic Studio.
- Headphones amplifier: The Strix can drive headphones upto 600ohm, however the setting has to be manually selected to get the desired amplification. The first time I plugged my headphones in, I found the volume to be a bit lacking and I was extremely disappointed with the performance. Only by chance I found out that you can change the impedance (ohm) level by right clicking the headphones icon on the software, and selecting the level of amplification you want (low, medium, high). Asus certainly needs to highlight this setting in case users are turned away by the low volume output.
- Sonic Radar PRO: I would be careful using this in online games as it might be considered cheating. What Sonic Radar PRO does is point at the direction from which particular sounds like footsteps, gunshots, and such are coming from with an on-screen overlay. So if some is shooting you from the left, the overlay will highlight that area, helping you figure out where exactly that shot came from. I didn't find it too much of a help as its hard to focus on the overlay while being engaged with the action, and it's slightly too risky using it in online games which is were it is most likely useful.
The Verdict
The Asus Strix RAID sound card is an excellent choice for gamers wanting premium audio quality that provides crystal clear playback and rich immersive sound from their games and movies. The bundled Sonic Studio software is also fantastic, allowing you to fine-tune the audio to exactly how you like it, with a ton of presets that some may find useful.However, I am unsure if the Strix RAID DLX ($218) is worth the value when other products in the same series is considerably less expensive than the DLX model. The Strix RAID Pro comes around at $140 and the primary difference between that and the DLX is that it uses a slightly lower quality DAC (ESS 9006A vs 90016). The biggest difference comes with the Strix RAID Soar at $99, which sports the same specs as the Pro but comes without the control box. Unless the ports at the back of your PC are hard to reach, the control box is entirely unnecessary and it's certainly not worth adding $ 100+ to the overall price.
Regardless of which version you go for, the Asus Strix RAID series of sound card will be a safe bet for those wanting a high-grade sound card.
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