AuzenTech Forte Low Profile PCI-E 7.1 Sound Card PCI-E Dolby Digital Live Headphone AMP

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Had it for 99$ for sale. Was supposed to get a 10$ MIR but didn't get it and i do not care about it, still a good price. Sound quality is nice. First time i plugged in my HD 555 on it i was surprised at how loud this this can be. The amp is really strong. Different audio modes, sometimes they bug (sound turns really weird or does not work), reinstalling drivers fixes everything. Nice product for around 100$

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This is most likely the best sound card I have used.The quality of sound is outstanding especially in games.Recommend this product.

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great soundcard; would definatly recoomand when on sale. can hear difference between this and onboard, in music, games, etc. really great! using it with my ath-ad700 headphones.if buying for regular price, maybe check out the asus essence. its not as much of a gaming card, but it makes up for that in music. wasn't worth the extra $100 almost to me, and i like to play games. no brainer!

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This is a fantastic sound card. Better quality and faster performance all around. Some people have said the low profile comes pre-installed, but mine came with the standard PCI bracket installed which was great since I don't have a low profile system.The card is smaller than it actually looks in photos which was a relief. I was worried it would touch my RAM on my top PCI Express slot on my P5Q Pro. But it fits perfectly above my video card.The only real downer is the price. However if you can get it on sale like I did it should be an immediate purchase, especially if all you have is onboard audio. It also comes with no documentation, other than the quick setup, which was not very helpful. I had to download the full documentation off the site so I knew how to use the front panel connectors for my Intel HD Audio connection. The disc also doesn't come with the most recent drivers, which you must also download at a size of over 200mb.

Comment:
The perfect all-round sound card for the vast majority of users that desire above-average sound for their entertainment functions. My only issue has been the amount of RFI that shows up in the audio channels from my GPUs when playing FPS games (the only available PCI-e slot is right up against a graphics card).

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I have to say, not having all that much bundled with the card isn't such a bad thing. Most other cards I purchased had a lot of stuff that I didn't want, nor used. So in this case, It isn't a big deal.Immediately I liked the quality of sound I got from the card. I'm using Altec Lansing ADA890 speakers, and Sennheiser HD580 Headphones. Now, even though the sound quality is excellent, this card is making me want to get a better sound system now *sigh*. Cheers.

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This is my first dedicated sound card and it's pretty impressive, it didn't blow me away like I'd imagine but I doubt anything would because the music is still the same, it's just now I'm noticing all these little extra parts of the song I couldn't hear before because it's that good, with my sennheiser hd555's the sound is next to perfect, but I think I would need to get a better set of main speakers to get the full benefits of this card. I got it on sale and it was a good price, I wouldn't buy it for the regular price because I don't think I could justify it. It IS much better than onboard, so if you want to spend the money, this card is a must

Comment:
I had to wait a while until the new drivers came out for Win 7 on this dual boot system and while there are a few bugs in the beta software the sound still is excellent and above the HD sound of the P5Q Pro. Will use this card to connect to a high end video card for HDMI out in the future.

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The reason I gave this 5/5 is because the sound card is fantastic, and there really are very little flaws with it. My only concern is not with the card itself, but with how the low-profile design makes this card a nightmare if you have your PCI-e x1 port in front of your PCI-e 16x VGA.If you're a gamer like I am, and happen to have a Low-profile machine, you will have an interesting look on your face when installing this. When it's all hooked up and ready to go, it's literally less than a CM away from my gfx card. It's such a tight fit I'm surprised it even fits at all. My sapphire 4650 went up around 25-30 degrees higher during intense gameplay, and this is with the case OPEN!So here's my warning---if you happen to have a graphics card in your LP machine and game at all, I'd steer away from any sort of PCI-e x1 addon card, unless it gives some sort of room for the graphics card to breath. I'm going to keep mine safe until I purchase a full-size computer in the future.

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I got this card and got blown away by the sound quality that it produced. This card was a pretty sweet deal when I purchased it.

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All I can say is wow for this sound card. I'm very impressed by it especially when I got it on the extreme deals that included free shipping to boot. Ordered on Canada day and arrived two days later. I'm very impressed with this product right now and I recommend this for all the audiophiles out there. Although this was made by Auzentech, they use the highly touted Creative X-fi technology which is in my opinion the best sound technology out there. 2 thumbs all the way up for this product. Playing games on this sound card is a blast and as well as watching movies.

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Bar none the best sound card I've ever owned. I am a gamer and audiophile and having a sound card deliver both of these aspects of my personality into a single package is amazing. I've conducted testing as seen here: http://forum.xcpus.com/other-sounds-cards-input-devices-etc/17628-gaming-dsps-any-difference.htmlBar none it has the lowest CPU usage and the best Audio quality (DTS encoder is tops). This review was modfied by poster @ 07-03-09 08:41 AM

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The gaming prowess of the x-fi with the quality of Auzentech, it's a great package and the drivers and software are much better than the Prelude.Couldn't find a pin-out guide for front panel connections with a quick search. Not a big deal, I'm sure I can dig it up if it becomes an issue.I like that it's PCI-E, regular PCI slots are becoming scarce these days (for good reason)

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Have only had this card for a day now, and haven't played around with everything yet, but I've seen & heard enough, so far, to give this card a big 'thumbs-up'.I got this card for a few reasons:- the onboard sound on my new mobo was a large disappointment,- I wanted to finally have a really good sound card for once, instead of a low-mid level card,- it was on sale, and could be price matched even lowerWhen I first heard this card after installing, I thought 'my God, what a waste of money', because it didn't sound any better than my onboard sound. Shortly after that, it didn't matter what I tried, there was no way I could get music to play from my rear speakers, even though the software's speaker setup worked on them.I then stuck the CD back in the drive, and re-installed the software, and I guess I must've overlooked something on the 1st try, because this time there were all of the settings the manual showed should've been available to me, and after some tinkering with the settings, this card then showed what it's capable of, i.e. some clear, powerful sound!!!One of the cool features, is the ability to easily, or even automatically(depending on your OS), change the sound characteristics, based on whether you're playing music/movies, or games. Another nice inclusion, is the labeled jacks wired onto a D-Sub connector, just to make it easier to plug in all your connectors, and then plug in one larger connector - very handy. The low profile could also be a very handy feature for those that want to stick a quality sound card in a smaller HTPC case.One feature I haven't tried yet, is using headphones plugged directly into the card, which is supposed to produce much better sound via the headphones than you'd get via another connection.Overall, a VERY nice sound card, which, even though I've barely used, I HIGHLY recommend, if for no other reason than the clarity of sound it produces!

Comment:
Made me drool all morning while I was listening to this baby giving life to my Z-5500! Wow! The only "downside" is since it's a low profile card (comes with standard adapter too) it needs an adapter to be plugged in to use 5.1 so it makes it a little messy behind the computer, but when you turn up the volume, you can forgive this card any flaws it has!

Comment:
This is the best soundcard i've had so far. I'm a professional gamer and all i can say this soundcard so perfect for game. I'm playing counter-strike:source and the sound is more clear than ever. I had a xtremgamer before and it worth the upgrade. I'm a sound fanatic so you can trust me. it worth every penny

Comment:
Better than the typical onboard integrated audio. Drivers are made by Creative Labs but bundled for Auzentech. So far, it's working perfectly under Vista x64.

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Got this for my new i7 build. All I can say is fantastic sound. Blows my old Audigy 4 Pro out of the water. Haven't tried to see if case(902) audio jacks work, those are plugged into the MB, not the card. Not a biggie,as I will use the headphone jack on my Klipsch control box anyway.

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Went with this in my new Vista-64 system as my old X-FI Xtrememusic is widely know to have terrible Vista support. Mainly use headphones and the sound quality is just fantastic. Auzentech's core software is pretty similar to the Creative package, which isn't a bad thing as there are various useful features the X-FI series has.Only two real complaints here: One, you don't get a mic port unless you attach the add-on connector with 6 different ports. For a card aimed at gamers, it seems silly not to have this built-in directly. It works fine, so it's a minor issue. Two, the price seems a tad higher than it needs to be. This is largely due to the X-RAM, which is of highly questionable value due to few games making use of it since so few people actually have it. It was more or less a DOA technolgy but Auzentech and Creative still throw it on their higher end cards. I got this for $150, which is much more reasonable. I'm not sure I'd go for this at $190, though there may not be much choice for Vista users as Creative's cheaper X-FI series doesn't work well in Vista, and other competing brands of this quality are around the same price range. Still, I am happy with Auzentech's product here and would highly recommended them over Creative and their horrible driver support.On a side note, for those looking at Auzentech cards there is really no reason to consider the Prelude over this unless you don't have a PCI-E slot. It's pretty much the exact same card, but the Forte is significantly cheaper.

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Before buying this card, I tested out an ASUS Xonar DX and a Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro and while they both had functionality I liked, their downsides and problems were too big for me support. The Xonar, while having a great sound, has way too many problems with recent games and near no EAX 3-4-5 support (contrary to the EAX 5 support ASUS advertised). The X-Fi Titanium, while having a great gaming support and a native EAX support, has an OK but nowhere near extraordinary sound. Another problem I had with X-Fi Titanium was my microphone not working properly. On his drivers, "boost mic" doesn't exist anymore and my microphone wasn't heard by the card. For the input to hear sound, I had to plug an amplified sound source like my iPod with at least 75% of the volume before any sound would be picked up. I could scream or hit the microphone and nothing was picked up. I only had that problem on Vista though, XP worked great. It was clearly a driver issue and Creative incompetent support did not help even after two weeks of emails exchange. I abandoned and started searching for a new solution which turned out to be the Auzen X-Fi Forte 7.1. It has all benefits of the Xonar and X-Fi Titanium without their default. It has a clear and powerful sound just like the Xonar and a the gaming performance of the X-Fi series. While it doesn't give the same sound as the Xonar (which is quite unique I might had) it gives a sound with comparable quality, for which, I guess the built-in headset amp as something to do. In music I even heard things I wasn't earring with the Xonar and while it wasn't such a revolution in games compared to the X-Fi Titanium, I did heard some improvement. It actually saved my life a couple of time at Rainbow Six Vegas 2.The drivers are pretty much what you would get with Creative, but with some customized and added options. There is also way more option during installation which is a good thing. Auzentech support seems to be very good too. Since the card been out (about two weeks) two drivers updates has already been released. This is much better than Creative in about 6 month and ASUS in a year.The only thing I would recommend to check is the clearance on the motherboard. The card being low profile is much longer than usual and on my ASUS P5Q-E, using the top PCI-E 1x, I only have about 1 or 2 millimeters of clearance beside my RAM. I tested the card on Windows Vista x64 with 8GB of RAM with Sennheiser HD 350. So far, I had no crackling popping problem like the old X-Fi did.So far it's a great product and I would recommend it to any gamer/audiophile with money to spare. This review was modfied by poster p 01-31-09 02:06 PM This review was modfied by poster @ 02-01-09 01:53 AM