To put the GPU under load, I used Unigines Heaven benchmark in windowed mode so I could run the audio benchmark simultaneously.Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts Log in sign up User account menu 127 Realtek ALC1220 vs Sound BlasterX AE-5 - My findings.
Theres simply too much noise and interference due to a piece of hardware. I have replaced the offending piece of hardware and re-run the tests. I know, I know. Everyone says to go with a USB DAC these days but curiosity got the best of me. Luckily I was able to find a used AE-5 from a good seller on eBay for an attractive price and I pulled the trigger. I had done a decent amount of research, but Sound Cards are kind of annoying to research because a lot of reviews just focus on the very subjective audio experience and dont really give you data that you can use to compare to other competing audio solutions. I did find a few with Rightmark Audio benchmarks so I figured Id benchmark my onboard audio compared to the AE-5 when it arrived. Background A few months ago I decided to ditch my Sound Blaster Zx in favor of my motherboards onboard sound. Realtek Alc1200 Audio Codec Drivers And SoftwareI did this for several reasons including annoying drivers and software, constant microphone hiss, and poor EMI shielding leading to a hissing or coil whine noise being played through my headphones while gaming. When playing a hectic game like Battlefield V, the audio would get. It didnt seem like there was too much depth to the sound, if that makes sense. Music also didnt have the same punchy bass or crisp highs that I was used to. But the microphone hiss and screeching in my headset was gone, so I stuck with a subpar audio experience. Unfortunately, the drivers that ASUS releases for my motherboard audio are less than stellar. I discovered an issue where the output volume would change wildly after each reboot. For example, if I had the volume set to 20 and a song was perfectly audible, if I reboot my computer, the Id have to raise the volume to 80 just to achieve the same sound level as before. Extremely annoying. At times, even maxing the volume at 100 would not be loud enough to hear properly. ![]() Unfortunately, I sold the Zx before I decided to benchmark, so I do not have any results for that card to compare against the AE-5. Test Setup AMD Ryzen 5 2600X ASUS ROG Strix X470-F Gaming Motherboard AMD RX Vega 56 (Undervolted, overclocked, 275W power draw on full load) FSP Group Hydro G 650W Power Supply Windows 10 64-bit ASUS calls the audio chip on this motherboard the SupremeFX S1220, which is really just a Realtek ALC1220. I had the ALC1220 set to 24-bit bit depth and a 192,000 KHz Sampling rate. Unfortunately, I didnt know that the Sound BlasterX AE-5 doesnt give me the option for the same sampling rate at 24-bit until I installed it, so I used the highest sampling rate I could set it to at that bit depth: 96,000 KHz. I ran the benchmark twice for both the motherboard audio chip and the AE-5. One while idling on the desktop, and one with the GPU under load. I mainly did this to see how adversely my audio experience was being effected by the amount of noise generated by my GPU.
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