PC Perspective - Diamond Xtreme Sound 7.1 with Dolby Digital Live Sound Card

	Diamond Xtreme Sound 7.1 with Dolby Digital Live Sound Card
	Author: Jonathan Hung Date: Jan 30, 2006 Subject: General Tech Manufacturer: Diamond Multimedia

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Summary

Diamond Multimedia is back in the sound card market with their Xtreme Sound 7.1 series of products. The price is excellent and there's even Dolby Digital Live, so what's the catch?

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Diamond Multimedia Xtreme Sound 7.1 with Dolby Digital Live
Section	Highlights
Introduction & Specs	Diamond Multimedia is back with an affordable audio add-on with Dolby Live. Can Diamond live up to their legacy of producing one of the best sound cards ever made for the PC? [ -> ]
Package & Software	A plain package with some potentially useful software. [ -> ]
Features	Dolby Digital Live is the big feature of course. [ -> ]
Game Performance - General	We take the Xtreme Sound 7.1 for a spin in Need for Speed: Most Wanted. [ -> ]
Game Performance - Voices	With Serious Sam 2 set at 10, 20, and 30 voices, the results are good. [ -> ]
CPU Scaling	By slowing down the CPU, we can see how the sound card relies on processor for performance. At 1.6GHz, the tests are pretty poor. [ -> ]
Subjective Listening	Performance is good (assuming your CPU is up to it), but how does it sound? See how it compared to the Sound Blaster X-Fi. [ -> ]
Impressions & Conclusions	The Xtreme Sound is a great candidate for the HTPC or the casual gaming system. The affordable price also means you don't have to spent much to get great sound. [ -> ]
Appendix: Hardware & Software configuration	What we used to test with. [ -> ]

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