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  1. Z3r0c00l's Avatar
    Z3r0c00l is offline Member
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    Gaming + DSPs (Any Difference?)

    There has been a lot of talk lately about the Asus Xonar based cards. I set out to test both the Asus Xonar DX 7.1 and the Asus Xonar Essence STX to see how they would fare against, what I consider to be, the king of 3D gaming sound cards Auzentech's X-Fi based Forte 7.1 in CPU usage and game sound reproduction. Just to humor everyone I also tested the onboard audio based on the Realtek ALC889A codec.


    Test system used:

    CPU: Q9550 (stock)
    MOBO: Gigabyte EP45-UD3P
    RAM: 4GB Corsair DDR2 800
    VID: eVGA GTX260 C216
    Windows XP-64bit

    Rightmark 3DS Testing (CPU Usage/Sound Buffers)

    Direct Sound 2D



    Direct Sound 3D



    Direct Sound 3D+EAX



    The results really surprised me. Quite a few people state that onboard audio is the same as any add in sound card which seems to be false.
    When objectively comparing audio quality the STX definitely won me over in Stereo Headphone use (paired with my Sennheiser HD650s) which is better suited when listening to lossless music tracks. When it came to movies though, the Forte was the clear winner with a richer deeper bass and better positional audio. Since I don't use standard speakers (Yamaha home Theater setup) the onboard audio would cause pops and clicks (distortion). This became quite annoying.
    Last edited by Z3r0c00l; 06-29-2009 at 05:13 AM.
    Intel Core i7 920 D0 @ 4.4Ghz (HT on) -- eVGA X58 Classified Hydro -- 6x 2GB Corsair XMS3 Dominator GT PC3-2000 DDR3 RAM -- ATi Radeon HD 4870X2 2GB Graphics Card -- ATi Radeon HD 4870 1GB Graphics Card for Tri-Fire -- eVGA 9800GT 512MB PhysX Card -- Intel Pro/1000 CT NIC -- Auzentech Forte 7.1 Audio -- 2x Intel X25-M 80GB SSD RAID0 -- 1TB Seagate 7200.11 7.2K RPM HD -- LG GBW-H20L BLU-RAY -- Corsair HX 1000W PSU -- Watercooled Silverstone TJ09-BW Case

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  2. mew905's Avatar
    mew905 is offline Member 500,000 Points
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    wow, this is actually VERY useful information for me. You said the Forte is an X-Fi based card? I did notice having a dedicated card reduced choppiness in games when playing in 5.1 (yeah, it was slightly choppy playing CS:S, even though my framerate is 70+)

    I was considering getting a sound card specifically to reduce CPU usage, (you may remember me asking this a while back in this section), thank you very much.

    Request: Would you be able to test in Vista? I hear hardware acceleration in Vista is bad compared to XP


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  3. Z3r0c00l's Avatar
    Z3r0c00l is offline Member
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    Sure I can try Vista x64.
    EAX tests will be lacking though for everything except the Forte (OpenAL with Alchemy).
    Intel Core i7 920 D0 @ 4.4Ghz (HT on) -- eVGA X58 Classified Hydro -- 6x 2GB Corsair XMS3 Dominator GT PC3-2000 DDR3 RAM -- ATi Radeon HD 4870X2 2GB Graphics Card -- ATi Radeon HD 4870 1GB Graphics Card for Tri-Fire -- eVGA 9800GT 512MB PhysX Card -- Intel Pro/1000 CT NIC -- Auzentech Forte 7.1 Audio -- 2x Intel X25-M 80GB SSD RAID0 -- 1TB Seagate 7200.11 7.2K RPM HD -- LG GBW-H20L BLU-RAY -- Corsair HX 1000W PSU -- Watercooled Silverstone TJ09-BW Case

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