Our testing methods
All tests were run three times, and their results were averaged, using the following test systems.
| Processor | Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0GHz | ||||
| Front-side bus | HT 16-bit/800MHz downstream HT 16-bit/800MHz upstream | ||||
| Motherboard | Abit KV8-MAX3 | ||||
| North bridge | VIA K8T800 | ||||
| South bridge | VIA VT8237 | ||||
| Chipset driver | Hyperion 4.51 | ||||
| Memory size | 512MB (1 DIMM) | ||||
| Memory type | Corsair XMS3500 PC3000 DDR SDRAM | ||||
| Graphics | ATI Radeon 9700 Pro | ||||
| Graphics driver | CATALYST 3.9 | ||||
| Audio card | Integrated VT8237/VT1616 | Audigy | Fortissimo III | Entertainer 7.1 | Revolution 7.1 |
| Audio driver | Realtek 5.10.0.5323 | Creative v031031 | Hercules v609a | VIA v143c | M-Audio v1026 |
| Storage | Maxtor 740X-6L 40GB 7200RPM ATA/133 hard drive | ||||
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 and DirectX 9.0b | ||||
Today we'll be comparing the Entertainer's performance against a handful of discrete sound cards—and against the Abit KV8-MAX3's integrated motherboard audio. I also added a VT8235/ALC650-equipped Tyan Trinity KT400 motherboard to our audio quality and subjective listening tests because, well, the ALC650 is practically an institution when it comes to motherboard audio.
Due to the fact that we're using an Athlon 64 system, it was impossible to include NVIDIA's nForce2 in our performance testing. Given the fact that the nForce APU is essentially dead, it didn't seem worth including in our quality or listening tests, either.
We used the following versions of our test applications:
- Futuremark 3DMark03 Patch 340
- Quake III Arena v1.31
- Serious Sam SE v1.07
- RightMark Audio Analyzer 5.2
- RightMark 3D Sound 1.0
The test systems' Windows desktop was set at 1024x768 in 32-bit color at a 75Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests. Most of the 3D gaming tests used the high detail image quality settings, with the exception that the resolution was set to 640x480 in 32-bit color.
All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.
