Audio Performance and Quality
RightMark 3DSound
This benchmark tests the CPU utilization of 3D audio on audio hardware. Here we tested the integrated audio on the A8R32 against the A8N32. The A8R32-MVP uses Azalia audio while the NVIDIA-based A8N32 does not.
RightMark Audio Analyzer
This test attempts to quantify the sound quality from an audio card by passing it on to a secondary sound card for evaluation. Our test setup passed the audio from the on-board sound to a PCI Creative Labs X-Fi card in order to complete the loop.
Rather than bring in 7 graphs for each audio card tested, I decided to include RightMark’s results that are in ‘just plain English’ rather than the complete audiophile numbers. If you are interested in those numbers feel free to email me and I’ll pass them on.
AN8 32X Results
A8R32-MVP Results
A8N32-SLI Results
CPU Utilization between the three competing audio solutions remains very close through out our testing with up to 32 buffers. The numbers are so close they are hard to to read on the graph.
On the RMAA testing, both the AN8 32X and the A8N32-SLI show audio quality much lower than that on the A8R32-MVP despite support for 8-channel audio with the Realtek codec.
