RMAA Testing

Test System Used
CPU: E4300 C2D
RAM: OCZ 2X1GB DDR2-800
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L
Video: ATI X-1950 Pro 256MB


RM 3D CPU Testing.

I decided to compare this card to the Prelude to show the contrast between a hardware card and a card that renders effects in software.
The Xonar uses more CPU processing power than the Prelude all across the board and in every buffer setting. This makes the Xonar harder on your system than hardware based cards. Software based cards off load all gaming effects and audio routines to your CPU making the card hard on the system. Hardware based cards have a onboard audio processor to handle effects and audio routines making the CPU processing load lighter on the system.






First off, I should clearly mention that RMAA 5.6 is INCLUDED in the Xonar 7.1 bundle and there is a very detailed PDF document outlining a procedure for getting the highest results possible using the ALT internal loopback circuitry. It makes sense the card would measure very high using this internal loopback structure. This makes the measurements a little suspect to this reviewer. They are included in this review for reference. That being said, these result are very good all across the board. These are some of the best measurements I have seen with a consumer level soundcard.


Dynamic Range.
This graph indicates this card has a very wide dynamic range of output signal.
The dynamic range is the difference between the loudest and quietest signal the card is capable of producing, the larger the range the better.



Frequency Response.
The straighter the graph, the better the sound quality.
This test was performed to test the output characteristics of the card. Some soundcards outputs can vary greatly which colors the sounds quite a bit. The linear nature of the results is very good. When there is variance there is color added to the sound.




This is the Total Harmonic Distortion plus Noise. The lower the measurement the better as this indicates very little distortion or noise present in the output signal. Harmonic distortion presents as multiple overtones in the original signal.





Stereo Crosstalk.
This shows Bleed through from one channel to the other, Lower is better as the graph indicates there is no channel interaction or bleedthrough present in the output signal. These results are very good and show virtually no channel interaction, indeed 24/96khz and 24/192khz are barely measurable.