Audio performance

The Expert's 3D audio performance mirrors that of the A8N32-SLI, which uses the same ALC850 codec chip and Realtek drivers. For some reason, Realtek's AC'97 audio drivers only support up to 25 buffers in this test, while the company's high definition audio drivers can handle up to 32.

Audio quality
We used an M-Audio Revolution 7.1 card for recording in RightMark's audio quality tests. Analog output ports were used on all systems. To keep things simple, I've translated RightMark's word-based quality scale to numbers. Higher scores reflect better audio quality, and the scale tops out at 6, which corresponds to an "Excellent" rating in RightMark.

Karajan audio riser or not, the Expert fails to distinguish itself in our audio quality tests. DFI's audio riser appears to perform better on the RDX200, but that board uses a different, high definition codec chip.