nForce4 Ultra Roundup: Charting the Mainstream
by Wesley Fink on July 5, 2005 10:28 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Audio Performance
For this Ultra roundup, we limited audio testing to the Rightmark 3D Sound CPU utilization test, which is the same benchmarks that were run in the nForce4 SLI roundup. This benchmark measures the overhead or CPU utilization required by a codec or hardware audio chip.
DFI and Abit deserve praise for their excellent design work on the Karajan module and the Audio Max respectively. They both reduce overhead substantially to very low levels compared to competing implementations of the same Realtek ALC850 codec.
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vijay333 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
oh...final system will have 4-5 HDs, standard DVD reader/writer along with (most likely) a 6800Ultra or a X800XL...Xenoterranos - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Anandtech did toy with a listening test a while back (I really don't remember much about it, other than the fact that they should have used Klipsch proMedia Ultra 5.1 speakers...)vijay333 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Maybe I missed this info in the article somehow, but could you provide the minimum/recommended PSU wattages for the motherboards? esp the DFI and the Epox. I have a Antec 400W Smartpower PSU right now, but read a few posts on newegg that this might not be enough? Hope I don't need to upgrade this too along with the mobo, cpu and gpu...vijay333 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
knitecrow - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
I have a comment about audio -- a topic that most sites ignore.Shouldn't there be a blind listening test?
i mean cpu utilization is fairly useless. If i am listening to mp3s i care more about the quality than cpu utilization.
flatblastard - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
I stopped reading on page 4 upon discovering the round-up. No explanation needed...Wesley Fink - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
g33k -The DFI was more a control to demonstrate SLI and Ultra performance were the same other than SLI video. Drivers have updated and we retested everything on the DFI as a sanity check. We ran benchmarks and not a full review, but it was hard to ignore the excellent performance.
There is also a comment in our Final Words that the MSI Ultra board should also be considered a winner, since the SLI version was a Gold Editors Choice in the SLI roundup, and the Ultra should perform the same.
g33k - Tuesday, July 5, 2005 - link
Along the same logic though, I'm curious as to why you chose to review the DFI Ultra-D when you reviewed the SLI version of this board earlier as well?.g33k - Tuesday, July 5, 2005 - link
Jeez, read Wesley's comments, he just answered why he did not review, the MSI board. It was already reviewed in the SLI roundup.Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 5, 2005 - link
"As you can see, none of the onboard audio solutions were quite as low in CPU utilization as the Creative SoundBlaster Live! Chip, which is used on the MSI K8N Neo4 SLI Platinum tested in the nForce4 SLI roundup."Since this is still nF4 we included components tested on all nForce4 boards. The Ultra version of the MSI, BTW, uses the Realtek ALC850 chipset and not the Sound Blaster Live!. The SB Live! is only used on the MSI SLI.