EVGA Nu Audio

We didn’t hear this one coming.

- Phil Iwaniuk

LAST ISSUE, WE ASKED a question in one of our features that seems to have been on the lips of PC users for the last 25 years: Do you need a soundcard? This issue, we ask simply: Do you need this one? Stylistically and on the spec sheet, EVGA’s high-end Nu Audio discrete soundcard is aimed squarely at gamers, but in truth, this is as much about enjoying better music as it is being able to hear Fortnite sound cues.

Let’s start with the headline numbers: Playback and recording formats go up to 384kHz, 32-bit audio, the signal-to-noise ratio is nice and high at 123dB, and there’s a generous array of ins and outs comprising stereo and headphone-outs, 3.5mm line and mic-ins, an optical-out, and front panel header. There’s also, rather inexplicably, an RGB lighting panel on the card itself, which is customizable via EVGA’s Nu Audio software. We can get on board with RGB on keyboards and even graphics cards these days (just as long as we can turn it off or program the color profiles to our taste), but unless your case has an inverse arrangement inside, like Corsair’s 600C, you simply won’t see the RGB on this soundcard.