EVGA Announces the NU Audio Pro 7.1 Sound Cards

[btarunr]

The EVGA NU Audio Card reintroduced the PC world to high-end audio, both stunning the audio world and making new fans along the way. The singular idea of producing Lifelike Audio and Gaming at an affordable price led to an exclusive partnership between one of the world's most recognizable PC hardware manufacturers and one of the true icons of the audio world - Audio Note (UK).

The NU Audio Pro Cards change the game once again. The pursuit of audio perfection on a PC takes another step forward with the introduction of a 7.1 Surround solution by EVGA and Audio Note. We took the solid foundation of the NU Audio Card, improved the component selections throughout, and matched it to a secondary card to provide surround support. The result is an experience where critical listening sessions can yield to enjoyment, and where thinking will surrender to feeling.



NU upgrades
The art of audio is about combining a lot of little details and fusing them together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. Careful testing and fine-tuning gives the NU Audio Pro a more refined look and audio signature than its predecessor. Here's a look at what's new on the NU Audio Pro:

New Cover:
The NU Audio Pro features a bold new cover design to remind you that this isn't your run-of the mill audio card.

Audio Note (UK) Seiryu (Azure Dragon) Capacitors:
The Seiryu capacitors, exclusive to the EVGA NU Audio Pro cards, are the progeny of Audio Note's KAISEI Electrolytic Capacitor lineage. Made using a slightly modified production process, these capacitors were designed from the ground up to improve the audio at every frequency.

Tuning Audio Through Capacitors:
The NU Audio Pro card also features AVX F95 audio tantalum capacitors to lower distortion, create a darker background, yet still give a dense lush feeling to the audio. The NP0 ceramic capacitors were replaced with Panasonic PPS types, to give a sweeter more natural treble. Combined, this gives an increased sense of air to wide-bandwidth recordings.

New Headphone Op-amp
Headphone lovers have not been forgotten. The NU Audio Pro Card features an LT1469 op-amp for the headphone out, which provides a lusher and more high quality sound to the audio, bringing out great dynamics and sound-staging without the edginess or rough sounding qualities of other op-amps.

RGB Lighting
The NU Audio Pro features a new take on RGB by offering three different RGB lighting zones on the side of the card. Each zone can be linked to the other two, while the two bars can be configured for audio reactive lighting to change dynamically with your audio playback.

Nahimic 3D Audio for Gamers
The NU Audio Pro Card is powered by nahimic with 3D Audio for Gamers, featuring nahimic's groundbreaking virtual surround to enhance positioning. nahimic also brings several QoL enhancements, including a Quick EQ menu to quickly adjust audio, smart volume to limit volume fluctuation, and ambient noise suppression to play with confidence knowing that you will be heard clearly-in game.

NU AUDIO PRO Software
With more channels comes great responsibility. That's why the NU Audio Software received a makeover to allow for new configuration options, individual and linked channel volume controls, and a new page to control the RGB lighting on the NU Audio Pro.

We've got you covered
We heard you loud and clear. The most requested feature that didn't make it to the NU Audio Card is added to the NU Audio Pro Cards. Each of the NU Audio Pro Cards feature a uniquely designed and EMS-shielding backplate that will set your system apart.

To learn more about the EVGA NU Audio Pro Cards and Preorder visit here.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[orionbg]

Dear EVGA, how many free PCIe slots do you think we have?
Also, seriously? Two cards to do the job of a single one??? Maybe an Audio SLI connector for "Better Audio Processing" is next?

 

[TheLostSwede]

Dear EVGA, how many free PCIe slots do you think we have?
Also, seriously? Two cards to do the job of a single one??? Maybe an Audio SLI connector for "Better Audio Processing" is next?

You on a mini-ITX board?
Although, these days m.2 seems to be favoured over x1 slots...

 

[orionbg]

You on a mini-ITX board?
Although, these days m.2 seems to be favoured over x1 slots...

miniITX no, but consider people with two (or more) GPUs and others with vertical GPUs... mounting one additional PCIe card in those cases is not always easy, let alone two...
Sound cards are a high end/enthusiast level products now days so those cases mentioned above will be more common... And also, companies like Creative, Asus and so on, long ago masterered the single card multichannel solutions...

 

[CheapMeat]

I just enjoy hardware and although true sound hardware acceleration is pretty much dead, I still kind of want all of these.

 

[Prima.Vera]

How does this compare with the Sound Blaster Audigy Rx 7.1 which is only 60$ and has a very high quality DSP?

 

[biffzinker]

How does this compare with the Sound Blaster Audigy Rx 7.1 which is only 60$ and has a very high quality DSP?

Not sure if this is what your looking for?
Audio DSP:

• XMOS xCORE-200
• Native DSD Support (up to x256)

If you there's anything else, maybe this link will help.

EVGA - Articles - EVGA Nu Audio

For nearly 20 years, EVGA has built the most powerful graphics cards to play your games at the highest settings, powerful motherboards to run your system at optimal settings, and reliably efficient power supplies to power your system. Now, EVGA extends its enthusiast tradition by partnering with...

www.evga.com

TechPowerUp's Review:

EVGA NU Audio Sound Card Review

EVGA surprised just about everyone by releasing a high-end PCIe sound card, a product from a category many consider as good as dead. We thoroughly tested the NU Audio with a wide range of headphones and speakers, and saw truly amazing results and were blown away by its amazing performance.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Chomiq]

Seriously, if you don't need 7.1 out just get the old one on sale. It's now $140 on Amazon with mail in rebate.

Edit.
Oh, looks like they increased the price. It's $148 now. It will probably return to $140 for BF.

 

[djisas]

Maybe this is the card to replace my loved X-fi Fatl1ty pro...

 

[bgunner]

Dear EVGA, how many free PCIe slots do you think we have?
Also, seriously? Two cards to do the job of a single one??? Maybe an Audio SLI connector for "Better Audio Processing" is next?

I totally agree. I ran a Creative card for years till I went Crossfire and lost the use of my PCI slot. I can get the same options from a creative card but it be an all in one card.

You on a mini-ITX board?
Although, these days m.2 seems to be favoured over x1 slots...

You must only run one GPU and no other slot based cards if you don't see 2 cards being an issue with connectability. I run 2 GPU's and have 2 open slots, 1x PCI-e x1 and 1x PCIe x4 because my other slots are covered by GPU's. The whole reason I'm in the market for a new sound card.

miniITX no, but consider people with two (or more) GPUs and others with vertical GPUs... mounting one additional PCIe card in those cases is not always easy, let alone two...
Sound cards are a high end/enthusiast level products now days so those cases mentioned above will be more common... And also, companies like Creative, Asus and so on, long ago masterered the single card multichannel solutions...

This is my point exactly. Not everyone uses a single card and now with DX12's ability to use multi cards and them not be the same the connectivity issue is all the more prominent. Single sound cards are the way to go for a gaming system but maybe not so for music creation but consider that even in music creation there is a capture card also that must be installed. This is a inescapable fact, connectivity will always be an issue.

Creative got around the dual card solution by using an external amp for the headphones, they still have options with an internal amp but this too is a dual card solution, where as this particular solution has it all inside the case. So in short this is not for me because it needs 2 cards even for a 5.1 analog systems. Sure you can have 5.1 with one card with this option but you must run a stereo to produce the 5.1 sound because it is only over the optical connection.

 

[biffzinker]

The triple slot MSI RTX 2060 Gaming Z took all the slots on the B450 Tomahawk ATX except the last slot on the board edge. The only place the Nu Audio would fit for me plus you need to plug in a SATA power connector.

Correction: There still is a second PCIe x16 slot but it appeared to close to the graphics card.

 

[TheLostSwede]

You must only run one GPU and no other slot based cards if you don't see 2 cards being an issue with connectability. I run 2 GPU's and have 2 open slots, 1x PCI-e x1 and 1x PCIe x4 because my other slots are covered by GPU's. The whole reason I'm in the market for a new sound card.

One GPU, yes, but no, it's not the only card in my PC, as I also have 10Gbps card, taking up the x4 slot.
Also, as I was saying, m.2 slots seems to be favoured over x1 slots, as I only have a single x1 slot.

 

[biffzinker]

One GPU, yes, but you clearly didn't check my system specs...

Your Gigabyte RTX 2080 Gaming OC 8G has a triple slot cooler as well.

 

[Chomiq]

Pro tip for Evga - external dac/Amp as next audio product.

 

[biffzinker]

Pro tip for Evga - external dac/Amp as next audio product.

It's already external USB, but on a card. That's what the ASMedia USB 3.0 Controller is for.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Your Gigabyte RTX 2080 Gaming OC 8G has a triple slot cooler as well.

2 and 1/3...

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

my ears are toast so i see no need to spend $300 for an audio card.

 

[bug]

I still prefer an onboard digital out + a proper amplifier/receiver.

 

[TheLostSwede]

I still prefer an onboard digital out + a proper amplifier/receiver.

Digital out (S/PDIF/Toslink) is too limited today, as the standard hasn't really changed since it was implemented, so a lot of audio formats are too high-end and can't be transmitted through anything but HDMI or DP these days...

 

[bug]

Digital out (S/PDIF/Toslink) is too limited today, as the standard hasn't really changed since it was implemented, so a lot of audio formats are too high-end and can't be transmitted through anything but HDMI or DP these days...

Really? The only thing I know of that doesn't work over SPDIF is like 5.1+ channels at very high bit rates and resolution. Something only studios need. If you know of other formats that aren't supported, I'm listening.
Also, I didn't say SPDIF

 

[springs113]

Im already limited, gpu, capture card(I wanted to run 2). Guess my zxr will have to do... if I can find it.

 

[EarthDog]

but consider people with two (or more) GPUs and others with vertical GPUs...

That is a good point, however, is fairly rare, these conditions. Multi GPU has been going the way of the dodo bird for a few years now. And if you mount your GPU vertically, you have to know there are limitations on PCIe cards, period. That said, in my case, I can run a 'full height' card along with my vertically mounted GPU... it will depend on the chassis if you have room or not.

 

[bug]

That is a good point, however, is fairly rare, these conditions. Multi GPU has been going the way of the dodo bird for a few years now. And if you mount your GPU vertically, you have to know there are limitations on PCIe cards, period. That said, in my case, I can run a 'full height' card along with my vertically mounted GPU... it will depend on the chassis if you have room or not.

The thing is, you'd want the best possible sound in your HTPC. Requiring 2 PCIe slot for the job kind flies in the face of that. But hey, let the market decide.

 

[EarthDog]

The thing is, you'd want the best possible sound in your HTPC. Requiring 2 PCIe slot for the job kind flies in the face of that. But hey, let the market decide.

Some may. Most, I feel, are perfectly fine with integrated audio these days... in particular the flagship codecs (Realtek ALC1220 for example). To me, it takes an audiophile to want such an item in their PC, not just users with an HTPC. And with that, if you want the best sound, a tiny ITX mobo may not be the best solution in the first place. You can get 'receiver size' chassis that with mATX/ATX boards inside which fits this nicely and fits in with other components (receiver, amp(s), pre-amp, surround decoder, etc).

But yeah, that eliminates using it on ITX, but doesn't really seem intended for such.

 

[Kapone33]

Wow 7 years after Asus released a PCI _E 7.1 sound card and that card can be had for less than $60. The sound quality on modern boards is also quite nice.