[genclaymore]

Road its for people who dont have spare PCI-E slots, like those with video cards that take two slots,SLi or those on matx mobos with a extra pci slot etc.

 

[oqvist]

PCI is in no way dying it will be here for several years to come to complement PCI Ex

. There is just not any use for PCI express for soundcards, network cards etc currently

But for me the primary reason I want PCI is because on most mainboards that allows you to set it separately at the lowest part of the case instead of closer to the video card. Even on modern mainboards you have more liberty with PCI. And it´s an old and proven standard which works

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oqvist /img/forum/go_quote.gif PCI is in no way dying it will be here for several years to come to complement PCI Ex . There is just not any use for PCI express for soundcards, network cards etc currently But for me the primary reason I want PCI is because on most mainboards that allows you to set it separately at the lowest part of the case instead of closer to the video card. Even on modern mainboards you have more liberty with PCI. And it´s an old and proven standard which works

Very true, also many of the newest mobo's are jam packed with so many slots the company doesn't consider real world usage.
You get PCI-E X1 slots up near the coolers making them useless. Companies also seem to jam X1 slots between the X16 slots people use for video cards.
Modern video cards are so wide they overlap the X1 slots. I have both on my PC but I just wish companies would think a bit more about real world use. What good are lost when they cannot actually be used?

 

[ah-see]

Wow, seems like its not only me that have their pci-e slots being all cluttered up and rendered useless.

 

[roadtonowhere08]

I see what you guys are saying, but the change will happen, and to drop a good amount of money on a card that will physically outlive its designated slot is a hard pill to swallow. If this release was a couple of years ago, I would have no objections.

My point is that PCI-Express has been around since the 939 pin AMD Athlons; what is the hold-up? I have a PCI-Express wireless network card, soundcard, graphics card, and JBOD controller. That just about covers the gamut of add on cards these days. Unless you have a really expensive legacy device that is necessary for your livelihood, there really is no excuse for the motherboard companies to be dragging their feet. Change happens, and the more unified the slots are on motherboards, the easier (not harder) it is for the consumer.

I have a feeling that once the DSPs and processors are native to PCI-Express protocol, the change will come quick. Now if every board would have nothing but physical 16x PCI-Express slots (with a good electrical lane assignment), there would be no issue with regards to card placement.

 

[jenneth]

As others have already said, most motherboard manufacturer places the X1s either on the first slot, or sandwich in between the X16s. I, too, had the same problem when I had my STX. Furthermore, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the PCIe (at its current state) offer any real benefit(s) over the PCI for sound cards.

Quote:

I have a feeling that once the DSPs and processors are native to PCI-Express protocol, the change will come quick.

When that happens, I'm sure ASUS will release another PCIe sound card.

 

[leeperry]

well, some ppl can be maxing out their PCI bus bandwidth w/ a RAID card for instance...so PCI-E has an edge, but it was also a major pain to install the STX in my system. looking forward to the ST release

 

[ROBSCIX]

Well PCI-E may be the future but there are still growing pains for many.

 

[Bojamijams]

Also remember, you can install the STX in ANY PCI-E slot.. ANY of them.. pci x4, x8, x16.. you don't HAVE to use the x1 slot if you got other PCI-E slots free

 

[roadtonowhere08]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jenneth /img/forum/go_quote.gif Furthermore, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the PCIe (at its current state) offer any real benefit(s) over the PCI for sound cards.

It's not that the added bandwidth is much of a benefit for sound cards, but the fact that for once there is a chance to have all expansion cards using the same slot architecture. This is why motherboard manufacturers need to stop messing around and just release beards with nothing but PCI-Express x16 slots. This makes everything easier for everyone since all PCI-Express cards can and will work in a x16 slot.

With SSD, RAID cards are a joke on PCI. Just one good one will saturate the entire bus in both reads and writes.

 

[NGX]

What happened to the 500+ pages this thread contained?

I just reinstalled Windows XP. I can't remember how to by-pass the Windows kernel mixer, but I remember this thread had a link to a guide some place. Anybody able to help me out?

 

[Bojamijams]

This is the ST thread, not the STX thread.

As for the guide, http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/ea...5/#post5316393

 

[NGX]

Ah, I see.

There was another tutorial that explained how to get direct streaming with both Foobar and Winamp, do you know where to find it? Thank you

 

[Bojamijams]

I don't know where that particular guide is but I'll give you a short version on how to get KS working with Foobar

Download the KS plugin @ foobar2000 3rd party components

Extract into your Foobar\components directory. Start Foobar. Goto File->Preferences. Choose Output on the left. Select "KS: Asus Essence STX Audio". You're done.

 

[ForTiNeRo]

well I'm also trying to make up my mind here.. this is my question: why does the ST claims to be "the first PCI audio card in the word to incorporate precision clock tuning to minimize audio jitter"? aren't ST and STX the same card? speaking about audio specs, of course. and btw, what does that means anyway?

edit: ... or they literaly mean "the first PCI card" just because the STX is not PCI, but PCI-E? that would be stupid, but it does makes sence though =P