Two questions:

Does/will it have working Vista drivers and configuration/control software on release?

Does it support OpenAL?

I just see little reason to buy ANY discrete sound card at this point unless it will offer surround sound environmental effects in future games and will work with and pass through modern digital sound formats like DTS and AC3 (or you dabble with audio workstation applications). I'm sure it can do this with XP, but does it work in Vista? That'd be a true coup over Creative.

Out of curiosity, does anyone support environmental effects acceleration in Vista besides Creative (on X-Fi only, of course) at this point?

I'm guess that the arrival of this card is the only reason that Creative has finally updated their Vista drivers. Thank God for some competition.

would it support hdmi 7.1 discrete channels? Even though its C-Media, I'd consider it for the hdmi reason alone. My Denon THX receiver aches for it!

A barely useful preview :/ But not bad to see. And yes it is supposed to be out in PCIe for #14 that was in various Computex coverage articles.

But honestly is there a point to add-on soundcards for anything but lower-end HTPC setups? I'd think that with anything using a half-decent receiver you'd be better off using a digital passthrough output and letting the receiver do the decoding. That can be done with most onboard audio nowadays.

.... If this thing was PCI-E I would be all over it.

Man, how many times have I been burned by audio drivers?

Creative - always the worst, but at least they're still around

Aureal - *sniff* RIP. Thanks Creative. Jerks.

Philips - Thunderbird chip was great, so why did you abandon it?

Realtek - "We're in the sound business, not the quality business."

Analog Devices - No generic drivers?

Crystal/Cirrus Logic - See "Analog Devices"

I'd gladly pawn my modified X-fi Xtrememusic for one of those...

Hoping to see a TR review from that.

So ah.......*nudge nudge* when are we going to see a review? Finally, a real competitor to Creative (although it still uses a X-Fi, the fact that Asus may launch better drivers, have better support, offer free driver downloads....)

*edit* I have been ninja pwn'd.

The LED lit jacks look nice. I want one in the PCI-E flavor for my new build, but I want optical out for my Abit speakers :(