Tom's Hardware: Review of various sound chips & affects on FPS.

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microAmp

microAmp

Diamond Member
Jul 5, 2000
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Article

Conclusion

It's no great surprise that the sound cards do very well. They are optimized for sound processing and substantially relieve the CPU of this heavy task to let it go about its more important business. The nForce APU does brilliantly in all three games and therefore deserves a special mention.

The Realtek ALC650 and C-MEDIA CMI8738 onboard chips, on the other hand, have trouble keeping pace. This is mainly due to the fact that they operate with soft audio. This implies that the audio driver keeps addressing the CPU, causing it to waste precious time in sound management. The effects are noticeably explicit - there is a performance drop of 14 to 15% in all three games. We confirmed this with another kind of game, Rally Sport Challenge, where changing to a sound card drastically improved its performance.
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Jeff7

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
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As far as I know, the Realtek ALC650 is just a codec; the other sound chips shown there actually do the serious work. My 8RDA+ board (nForce2 chipset with the APU) uses the Realtek ALC650 chip as the codec! Seems like a bit of a goofup in the review.
 
apoppin

apoppin

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
34,890
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alienbabeltech.com
Some of THG articles are originally written in German . . .

ANyway, the conclusion was interesting . . .
The tests we ran show that a sound card like the Hercules Fortissimo III ($49.99) is quite ample for a definite improvement in performance. For AMD fans, we can only recommend the excellent nForce 2, provided it is implemented on the motherboard with the APU. But be warned, a lot of manufacturers don't actually use this part of nForce 2, going instead for the slower, conventional audio chips. The Audigy 2 is also an excellent choice, but the investment of $129 is only worth it if you are interested in its musical features.

One thing's for sure: conventional onboard sound is hazardous for performance levels and, paradoxically, it costs a lot of money. Some folks may not believe this, but it is a fact! Now there's something to think about.
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"One thing's for sure:" Duh :p

The article was a good idea but its "depth" is pretty limited . . .
 
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Pacinamac23

Senior member
Feb 23, 2001
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They didn't say what effects they had turned on when they did the testing. Did they use EAX, EAX2 the Advanced HD? That can make a HUGE difference in some games.
 
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Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
21,938
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They should use modes all sound cards work with, or the comparison is limited in terms of numbers of cards.

EDIT: read "article". 3 benchmarks? How p!ss poor. THG does it once again.
 
Cerb

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
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That's a near useless review.
We know the NForce2 APU and Audigy2 are better, but for the others, they don't even mention the mobos used for the tests, which I would think is very relavent for the AL C650 (assuming this chip even makes a difference, since it isn't really doing the work). Not to mention they don't use different cards with the sound chips, nor EAX and similar features (especially important with the CMI8738, which is on expansion sound cards using different drivers than the basic onboard ones--that didn't come out right but you get the idea). Lastly they didn't use the VIA and SiS onboard as a baseline. I would love a review like this, but if so, it should be done with more depth.
 
zephyrprime

zephyrprime

Diamond Member
Feb 18, 2001
7,512
2
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That's a near useless review.
We know the NForce2 APU and Audigy2 are better, but for the others, they don't even mention the mobos used for the tests, which I would think is very relavent for the AL C650 (assuming this chip even makes a difference, since it isn't really doing the work). Not to mention they don't use different cards with the sound chips, nor EAX and similar features (especially important with the CMI8738, which is on expansion sound cards using different drivers than the basic onboard ones--that didn't come out right but you get the idea). Lastly they didn't use the VIA and SiS onboard as a baseline. I would love a review like this, but if so, it should be done with more depth.
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All your criticisms are valid but where are you going to get a better review? There's never been another audio review that's as good as this on that I've seen. The only other sound card review I've seen only included 2 sound cards and no onboard audio.
 
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holdencommodore

Golden Member
Nov 3, 2000
1,061
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Yep, 3dsoundsurge is the best site for audio reviews. Both Mark and Mikael go into great depth in each review.

I though they should have done some more benchmarks then only using three games. They could have atleast used Ziff Davis Audio WinBench / 3d Mark 03 audio tests or UT2003 hardware/software sound.

Cheers
 
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AtomicDude512

Golden Member
Feb 10, 2003
1,067
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HAha. What a stupid article. Maybe the nForce2 audio got more FPS was because it uses the nForce2 platform! Haha.
 
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holdencommodore

Golden Member
Nov 3, 2000
1,061
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0
Yeh, they don't mention what motherboard they used in their setup, logically though, you'd think they would use the nForce motherboard for all the tests...

Cheers
 
M

madthumbs

Banned
Oct 1, 2000
2,680
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I was referred to 3dsoundsurge from Philip's technical support. Very good info, and forums too!
 
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Davegod

Platinum Member
Nov 26, 2001
2,874
0
76
THG produce another article? oh better crap on it then.

Its only an introduction to show different sound codecs/cards have a significant effect on fps, using a small sample simply to illustrate the point. It shows its point well enough, it doesnt pretend to be anything more. As for moaning about grammar, thats pretty pathetic.
 
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Snoop

Golden Member
Oct 11, 1999
1,424
0
76
As for moaning about grammar, thats pretty pathetic.
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Usually grammer nazi's bother me, but in this case, a purported top-flight hardware review site that makes silly and sometimes confusing grammatical errors, justifies criticism. Toms hardware makes enough money to hire a part-time english major, to edit the articles. IMO though, its par for the course at Toms, where misleading and sometimes outright bullspit is the norm.
 
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holdencommodore

Golden Member
Nov 3, 2000
1,061
0
0
Mark's been busy with real life and hasn't had the time to do any reviews lately on 3DSS..... when they do come though, they are worth the wait... I suppose that's what happens when there are only two people who write the reviews.


Cheers
 
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Pariah

Elite Member
Apr 16, 2000
7,357
20
81
They still haven't reviewed the Audigy 2 yet. How many months ago was it released? That's a rather major release that I think deserves a review at some point.

Other cards they haven't reviewed:

Audigy 2 Platinum EX
DIGIFIRE 7.1
Gamesurround Fortissimo III 7.1
Gamesurround Muse 5.1 DVD
Terratec Aureon cards (Fun,Sky,Space)
Terratec 6Fire cards
M-Audio Revolution

Those are just a few of the cards they haven't reviewed. Forget 2 months, they've only reviewed one sound card (Nforce) since October 25, 2001. Though I agree they write the best reviews, they are a pretty worthless site for reviews at this point looking at how infrequently they do now, and how many current soundcards they haven't reviewed. At this point I would say digital-life is the best place for sound card reviews today.
 
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holdencommodore

Golden Member
Nov 3, 2000
1,061
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0
They also recently did a full review of the SoundMax intergrated audio. Maybe Mark needs reminding regarding the other soundcards ... :)

Cheers
 
Jeff7

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
19
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Originally posted by: madthumbs
Originally posted by: SeekingTao
Originally posted by: oldfart
where are you going to get a better review?
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3DSoundSurge
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Agreed. I've been a reader of theirs for years now. It's their "fault" that I bought the TBSC I grudgingly parted with last month (after almost 2 years of faithful service). :)
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-What did you part with it for?
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His system rig link says that he's got an Epox 8RDA+. I'm guessing he did what I did too - sold his TBSC and used the very good nForce2's APU.
 
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