VirtualDub Audio Extraction

We ripped the audio of at 44 100Hz, no compression using VirtualDub 1.5.8 (Build 18068). Times are in seconds, and lower is better.

Lower times are better

Both i865s are dead even here, with the Canterwood outpacing both boards by a mere one second.

TMPGEnc 2.521

We used the same Animatrix file and the WAV created from VirtualDub, and converted it into a VCD compliant MPEG-1 file. Times are in minutes:seconds, and lower is better.

Lower times are better

Another close one here, and despite falling into third place, the performance of the Ice Cube is still very strong in MPG encoding.

Quake 3: Arena @ 640

Return to Castle Wolfenstein @ 640

ABIT doesn't call it the "Game Accelerator" for nothing, and as a result, both ABIT boards finish number one and two for both are gaming tests. The Ice Cube's performance is still plenty good enough for serious gamers though, and keep in mind that when you play at higher resolutions, the video card will be the determining factor.

Subsystem Testing

The first thing we'll check is the audio. We downloaded and installed to test its CPU utilization.

Like the other Realtek solutions we've used in the past, CPU utilization was fairly high thoughout the DirectSound3D tests. CPU utilization never got to 10%, 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.

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 Quake 3 performance.

Quake 3: Arena Sound Tests

For our Quake 3 tests, we ran demo_four benchmarks at 640x480, minimum detail with sound on and off. This was repeated at 1024x768, but with maximum detail. The reasoning is at low detail and resolution, the work will fall on the CPU and motherboard subsystem. Higher resolution is more representive of actual gameplay for most users

640x480, Min Detail

With sound enabled, the Ice Cube loses almost three frames per second, which isn't really that bad at all. I doubt many of you play at such a low resolution, so let's see what happens at 1024x768.

1024x768, Max Detail

At a higher resolution and detail levels, the there is still a loss of 1fps. This is hardly any cause for concern, and I'd say that the onboard sound is perfectly fine for gaming and general sound.

In terms of sound quality, I found gaming to be very acceptable, as was the case with movie and MP3 playback. I didn't experience much distortion when we did our file transfer tests (next page), and the only problem I had was that I found music playback not as deep as the Audigy or nForce 2.

For recording tests, I used a small microphone that came with my Audigy Platinum, and recorded a few sentences. The recordings sounded as they should, with no crackling or distortion when I spoke at a normal tone, but there was some distortion at louder voice tests, making the Mic-In a bad choice for musicians.

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