Subsystem Testing
The first thing we'll check is the audio. We downloaded and installed to test its CPU utilization.
Like the IC7's Realtek solution, CPU utilization was fairly high thoughout the DirectSound3D tests. CPU utilization never got to 11%, but it did average in the 5% - 8% range, which is a lot higher than the <2% averages we've seen with the nForce 2. It's not the end of the world, given that the slowest CPU you would ideally be using with the IC7-MAX3 is a 2.4GHz "C", but we would have liked to have seen lower numbers. This is a synthetic benchmark though, and since I know all of you enjoy a game or two, let's see how the sound will affect UT 2003 performance.
The [H]ardocp Tool has an option to enable and disable sound during testing. Tests will be done with the same hardware configuration as the rest of the benchmarks, except we'll only be displaying the Pentium 4 2.4GHz "C" numbers.
UT 2003, Minimum Detail, 640x480 Resolution
With sound enabled, the IC7-MAX3 takes a nasty 20 frames per second hit. This is, on average, the results we get whenever we test the onboard Realtek, but I doubt most of you play at these settings, so let's look at something more realistic.
UT 2003, Maximum Detail, 1280x1024 Resolution
When it comes down to it, at high resolution and detail levels, the onboard sound's CPU utilization will not be a factor at all. I for one won't be able to spot a 0.0019 difference, so if you're going to game with the onboard sound, you should be fine.
In terms of sound quality, I found gaming to be very acceptable, as was the case with movie and MP3 playback. I ddin't hear any distortion, even when moving files around the hard disk. For recording tests, I used a small microphone that came with my Audigy Platinum, and recorded a few samples while running a disk defrag. The recordings sounded as they should, with no crackling or distortion. I don't exactly have a sound studio setup, but it seemed to work fine to the best of my knowledge.
Hard Drive Performance
The maximum read speed with the Seagate SATA drive was about 55MB/sec, with 44MB/sec being the average. CPU usage was low at 2.8%, which is in line with other Intel based SATA interfaces I've tested.
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