Posted on Thursday, January 10 2013 @ 9:53 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
The Tech Report
writes Diamond will ship the Xtreme Sound HD Pro in March. This new budget audio card is targeted at "music and game enthusiasts", it seems like a budget offering based on the C-Media CMI8838 audio processor. The card uses the PCI Express x1 interface and comes with an expansion bracket with some extra ports.
Few details are known, except that the card has a 120-dB SNR.
Under the plain-looking EMI shield sits a C-Media CMI8838 audio processor. C-Media's website doesn't have any details on the chip, but I suspect it's an updated (and probably native PCIe) version of the budget CMI8738. The old chip is limited to 16-bit audio at sampling rates up to 48kHz, and it can't feed more than six output channels. However, the new Diamond card supports 24-bit/192kHz audio and eight-channel output.
The CMI8738 combines the audio processor and codec on a single chip to lower costs for card makers, and I wouldn't be surprised if the CMI8838 were similarly integrated. Diamond's press materials also mention a built-in headphone amp, but that feature may be powered by separate silicon.
