Quality of the Soundmax Ad1985 codec chip??

[sterling]

HI All

Does anyone know which onboard chip produces the best sound on a 865pe based motherboard? I was particularly interested in the Soundmax AD1985. Some reviews say its great, other reviews said it was a dog. (Intell865perll)

thanks

 

[WobbleWobble]

Soundmax has great SNR ratio. If you like to listen to music, it does the job fine. If you want to play games, the CPU usage will be a bit higher but not enough to cause any worry.

The Asus P4P800 has the Soundmax chip as well.

 

[nitromullet]

I prefer the sound out of my Audigy(1) better, but didn't notice the difference until I had my Logitechs hooked up. The sound out of the AD1985 isn't bad by any means, I just think that the Audigy is more crisp. Get a board that has it, like the Asus P4P800 Dlx, and if you don't think it's adequate, you can always add a different card.

 

[yhelothar]

soundmax rocks. I switched from nforce2 soundstorm to soundmax from my dell i875P, and with my Sennheiser HD497.. the high notes were so much more crisp on the soundmax. Music quality was awesome, gaming quality was a bit lacking. But soundmax is definately a nice chip.