Hardware acceleration benefit from X-fi in games

[Chunkers]

I have read that this card can reduce CPU load by up to 5% in games and offers greatly improved sound over headphones or good speakers. This is when compared with most motherboard onboard sound chips and the Audigy chipset.

Can anyone verify this? I am looking at the Fatal1ty edition because I really want the front panel (ouch on the price).

Cheers

Chunks

[DanceswithUnix]

AC97 onboard sound is CPU intensive.

HD onboard audio seems OK.

I wouldn't expect to see any performance difference between audigy and Xfi (hence I bought an Audigy 2 se).

[this_is_gav]

Any decent Audigy will probably be a touch slower at things like EAX, but to expect anything more than a 3% boost would be optimistic IMHO.

[arthurleung]

Sound from X-Fi is indeed better in games (can process more sound sources at once), i.e. you can only hear 3 sources of gun-fire previously now you can hear 6 sources, music is slightly better due to the higher SNR ratio.

CPU usage shouldn't improve much compared to an Audigy2 BUT will be a lot better than AC97.

[dave87]

Couple of percent at most, it really doesn't make a massive difference - though as some have said, it will be an improvement over AC97 audio

[krazy_olie]

Any sound card from Live! is better than AC 97 for gaming after that the performance difference is pretty small. Audio quality is higher though.

The x-ram in the expensive x-fi models apparently does pretty much nothing.

[chuckskull]

Any standalone sound card will take some load off the CPU. as for which one to get, if you got the £59 get the OEM X-fi you wont be disappointed, otherwise Audigy 2/4 are both good cards.

[dave87]

Any sound card from Live! is better than AC 97 for gaming after that the performance difference is pretty small. Audio quality is higher though.

The x-ram in the expensive x-fi models apparently does pretty much nothing.

The only onboard sound I know that goes against that is the NVidia Soundstorm - but that wasn't very successful (in sales terms)

[DanceswithUnix]

OK then, here is a review of sound cards showing Audigy 2, 4 and HD audio. You get a few frames per second improvement over HD audio, and I'm sure I have seen reviews in the past showing HD onboard audio better than AC97 onboard.

Note that the Audigy 2 is faster than the Audigy 4. There is also a newer review on Anandtech of the X-fi which shows the Audigy 4 as faster than X-fi. Seems as the cards get more complex, so do the drivers so with better quality sound you get a reduction in frame rate

I spent £16-50 on an OEM Audigy 2 on the back of those sorts of results. Good enough sound quality for me, and very cost effective.

[Pie_uk]

i went with x-fi for the pure reason that it has a 24bit sound crystalliser that umphs those sounds in games and music. also it makes sound more realistic in games. it helps that you can enable ultra high in BF2 also.

[kalniel]

If you are CPU limited in games then yes, having a dedicated sound card can help. If your CPU is sitting around waiting for the graphics card to draw something then it's not going to make much difference.

[Butcher]

If you are CPU limited in games then yes, having a dedicated sound card can help. If your CPU is sitting around waiting for the graphics card to draw something then it's not going to make much difference.

I suspect most people are CPU limited.

[kalniel]

Really? I thought you only need something like a 2ghz AMD64 part to not be limited up to something like a 7900GT - depending on the game/resolution of course.

[shaithis]

Really? I thought you only need something like a 2ghz AMD64 part to not be limited up to something like a 7900GT - depending on the game/resolution of course.

The goalposts keep moving and different games work differently.....

I would highly doubt that a 2GHz AMD chip would CPU-limit you on a 7900GT....in fact I doubt it would on a 6600GT.

[chuckskull]

You have to remember processor load varies wildy during the course of just one match, at some points during the game you will be running at 100% CPU and then you're CPU limited, 30 seconds later it may be at 50%, which means you'll be GPU limted.

The best bet is getting a balance, for example dont put a 7950GX2 in with a 2800+ sempron. and viceversa, no point having a X6800 and onboard graphics.

[FatalSaviour]

I suspect most people are CPU limited.

Really? ...Depends on res I suppose, but most modern games are usually GPU intensive, esp at high res or high FSAA and AF levels