Page 6 - RM3D 2.2 & RMAA 5.5
RM3D 2.2
The idea behind RM3D is to test how efficient the hardware and drivers are for a given sound card. The HDA X-Plosion supports a maximum of 64 voices, the X-Fi is double that to 128, and the nForce 4 (ALC850) tops out at whopping 47.
We expect to see the X-Fi to lead the X-Plosion 7.1 in CPU utilization, and it does, but not by a large margin. The X-Fi is geared for so many more features, and many of those features wont matter too much to people who dont play a lot of games on their PCs.
What is interesting here is that depite all the fancy-pants X-Fi DSP, the little ALC850 audio is doing super fine. I ran this benchmark 6 times, even though RM3D runs the test internally over 100 times. On to the DirectSound 3D acceleration.
The trend continues... however, we now see the limits of the nForce4 ALC850 (it's really a RealTek chip). On to DirectSound3D with EAX.
Intriguing. No, I didn't forget to benchmark something. Both RM3D and EVEREST report that there was no EAX support with the HDA X-Plosion 7.1 DTS-Connect, and therefore was not able to test it. I'll reserve the conspiracy/anti-competitive thoeries to myself, thank you.
RMAA 5.5
The other Rightmark benchmark is the RMAA, which tests how good electrically the card is. There are more esoteric and costly methods to test a sound card, but RMAA 5.5 is pretty darn good at what it does. The RMAA tests are also the last test performed before publication, so as not to taint the subjective listening tests. The listening tests are actually the first tests (aside from the computer booting with new hardware).
Yowza! The X-Fi justifies its position as the reference sound card in every category found in RMAA 5.5. I could show you the graphs (email me if you wish), but they aren't any more informative. The HDA X-Plosion 7.1 takes the middle position with good numbers. There is also some justification to upgrade from onboard audio presented here.
In case you didnt notice, RM3D and EVEREST both report that the HDA X-Plosion does not have support for EAX 1 & 2. A quick email to auzentech showed that the X-Plosion does in fact have working EAX. However, I tested the card in a freshly installed Win2000 machine, with both 1.47.3 beta and the 1.46 drivers off the CD and was not able to confirm their findings. While the lack of EAX hindered the testing phase of the review, it didnt really impact the games section as much as one would think. If you install the X-Plosion 7.1 and get EAX support, then good for you.
Overall, the X-Fi is still king. Some surprising results here too, as the X-Plosion struggles a bit with DirectSound efficiency, but does well with RMAA tests. I did not test the X-Plosion with upgraded opamps, as is a feature on the card, but I am informed it can make a very significant performance boost with RMAA.
