Discrete sound card or a DAC? I personally chose a sound card because desk space is a premium for me due to a 34" monitor and a set of GigaWorks T40 Series II speakers. Sound Blaster Command provides you with various configuration options to enhance the performance of your product and personalize your audio settings. Immediately, after installing it and hooking it up to the GigaWorks T40 Series II speakers, with my layman ears, i could immediately tell the difference between the AE-5 and the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude which i was still using with the T40s just a few days prior. Testing the AE-5 with just a few songs from Sarah Brightman, Tsai Chin and Metallica, the sound from the T40s which i had also used with the X-Fi Prelude were richer, definitely clearer and just a little "warmer". Gaming audio, which the AE-5 was marketed at, proved to excellent as well. In my T40 review, i mentioned that the T40 could not quite deliver the warmth and power of a 2.1 system insofar as bass is concerned but with the AE-5, that shortcoming evaporated and i was simply blown away.

Moreover, having owed an Auzentech X-Fi Prelude, i am a firm convert of discrete sound card audio being superior to onboard audio even if the onboard audio is a good one (my old rig was a Gigabyte Sniper 3 Intel Z77 motherboard which had a Creative Sound Core3D™ quad-core audio processor). Creative Labs was instrumental in evolving PC audio with notable products, like the Sound Blaster 16, AWE 32, AWE64, Live!, Audigy, X-Fi, and Extigy, and algorithms like EAX technology. Most of its competitors through the last three decades, like Yamaha, ESS, Turtle Beach, Auzentech and M-Audio, evolved their product line-ups or faded into obscurity. There were acquisitions of Aureal and Sensaura technologies that further boosted Creative's technology portfolio, too. Sound cards seem passé nowadays, as motherboard manufacturers hop up high-definition audio codecs with higher quality op-amps, capacitors, shielding and S/PDIF outputs, that make discrete sound cards a harder sell. But despite all the optimizations and tweaks to on-board audio, there’s only so much you can do with cost-conscious audio codecs.

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The AE-5 is Creative's latest card and since i was building a new rig this year, I decided to go for broke and get it. Power: PCIe bus power, +5V for Aurora lighting (requires 4-pin molex peripheral connector from PC power supply) Connectivity Options (Main): 1 x TOSLINK Optical Out, 1 x 1/8″ (3.5mm) Mic In/Line In, 1 x 1/8″ (3.5mm) Headphone/Headset Out, 1 x 1/8″ Front Out, 1 x 1/8″

Connectivity Options (Accessory): 1 x Front Panel Header, 1 x RGB LED Header (support 5V RGB strips) It’s important to look past the AE-5 Plus’ reservation for PCs. This is exclusively a device which plugs into a PCI-E x1 slot on a motherboard. This can seem jarring in a market where sound cards are USB-powered, portable and interchangeable between Mac/PC/Consoles. But users looking for a card that stays on their computer and nothing else won’t be disappointed. Because the AE-5 Plus is directly connected to the PC, the sounds also come at a low latency. It also becomes a raw recording device, giving users a bonus of recording studio-quality audio straight from the AE-5 Plus. For creators and audio-based producers, it’s a nice addition that makes the card an even bigger utility.

Sound BlasterX AE-5 Review: A Gaming Sound Card for Headphone Aficionados