For our next set of
benchmarks we used a couple of older games, namely Quake 3
Arena and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter. In any
event, they will give us a feel for how our audio
subsystems affected performance.
|
Quake 3 |
OpenGL Gaming
Performance |
|
In the Quake 3
time demo we're seeing barely any drop off in performance
when audio is enabled. This is more of what we'd like
to see when it comes to performance from our audio
subsystems. NVIDIA's SoundStorm integrated audio
and MAD DOG's Entertainer 7.1 sound card both performed well
here.
|
Serious Sam: TSE |
More
in-Game Action |
|
Our last
test was run with the Serious Sam: The Second Encounter Demo
using the
Little Trouble level. This game takes a much bigger
hit in performance with audio enabled. The MAD DOG
Entertainer card caused almost a 4% decrease in performance,
but this is right in line with what we've been seeing all
along. The NVIDIA powered on-board sound again doesn't seem to effect
the score quite as much as the MAD DOG Entertainer sound
card.
|
Subjective Listening |
Ears Wide Open |
|
GAMES: UT2003, Quake 3, NHL
2004
Gaming with both the SoundStorm on-board sound and the MAD DOG
Entertainer was a very pleasing experience.
We give the edge to the MAD DOG
Entertainer, however, since it better reproduced the
little sounds that made the games feel more
immersive.
Our on-board sound solution, was a bit flat and
less impressive, in our opinion. In UT2003
and Quake 3, the footsteps were strikingly clear
with the MAD DOG Entertainer while the on-board
sound made those types of sounds harder to discern.
Overall, we liked the MAD DOG Entertainer for our
gaming needs.
WinAMP v3.0 & Windows
Media Player 9:
For testing music quality on both of these sound
cards we took our Metallica "Load" CD and ripped
all the tracks from it into mp3 format at 192kbps
bit rate. We also listened to a wide variety
of music CDs to see how diverse each card was in
reproducing different music genres. Again,
in this testing we feel the MAD DOG Entertainer
had an edge over the on-board sound. The
highs were crystal clear and the bass seemed to
hit harder with the MAD DOG
Entertainer. It seemed that in order to
get the same feeling from the music with the SoundStorm audio, higher volume levels were
required. This is not always a bad thing,
but in our minds being able to produce accurate
audio at any volume level is key.
After running the
MAD DOG Entertainer sound card through a round of benchmarks
and listening to it subjectively, it's safe to say that we
were fairly impressed with this card from a subjective
standpoint. Its paper specs and features were
impressive as well, since the card offers up to eight
channels of digital sound and uses a reputable codec in the
Envy24 series. Additionally, this card definitely may
delight you
where it matters the most - your wallet. The MAD DOG
Entertainer can be found on various search engines for around $50.
However, while the Entertainer
won't take a huge chunk out of your
savings, it doesn't offer as much incentive to make the
switch from a quality on-board sound solution. When listened to
subjectively, both the on-board sound and the MAD DOG
Entertainer sounded very comparable, neither one really stood
out that prominently. Clearly however, we gave the
Entertainer strong competition in our test scenarios, as
nVidia's "Sound Storm" technology is better than the
standard CODEC solutions you find on many Intel chipset
based motherboards. Performance wise, the
benchmarks show that the MAD DOG card uses a bit more
processing power when compared to NVIDIA's SoundStorm, which
itself uses more CPU resources than cards like Creative
Lab's Audigy or Hercules' Fortissimo III.
So it all boils down to what you really need. If your
motherboard currently doesn't have on-board sound then the
MAD DOG Entertainer DSP 7.1 sound card is a great addition to
any system. If you're already satisfied with your
on-board sound, then we find less reason to upgrade unless, of course, you have
8 speaker setup, which is obviously not commonplace . We're giving the MAD DOG Entertainer DSP 7.1 sound card a HotHardware Heat Meter
rating of 7.5.
|
|
- 8 discrete channels
- Digital and analog
ins & outs
- VIA Envy24HT-S codec
- 24-bit Digital
Signal Processor
- Affordable
|
- Slightly higher CPU
utilization when compared to the competition
|
Discuss this
or any other Hot Hardware Review in the PC Hardware Forum!
|