AZTECH PCI 64-Q3D Sound Card Review

Date: 17th Nov 98 by Matthew Fam Kai Liang

The Good The Bad Test System Configuration Conclusion Rating

This is the second AZTECH product review Singapore Hardware Zone Labs has done. The AZTECH PCI 64-Q3D is a small-sized PCI-based soundcard designed for the lower end market.  Retailing at just below S$40, it competes strongly against other lower-end PCI soundcards.  It is packed in a usual card-based box, in which you can find a CD-ROM for installation, a relatively thin user guide, warranty card and an audio cable. Nothing unusual stands out from the packaging. Anyway, I was not expecting that much from a sound card that caters to the lower end market. However, installation of the card was a breeze.  No special precautions were needed. Installation was similar to any other sound card. Driver installation was very user friendly too; you cannot go wrong with the Plug N Play function.  Just plug the card into an available PCI slot and boot up the system, and it should work.

The Good

PCI 64-Q3D came without any suprises to me. It worked prefectly under my Windows 98 system.

The card was mainly designed for the entry level computer buyer who wants to upgrade to a new PCI standard soundcard.  In terms of comparsion between this card and older generation cards like the SoundBlaster 16/32/64 running ISA bus, it offers up to 80% reduction in CPU consumption when running the latest games.   Most importantly, it offers you the path of having full Direct Sound and Direct Sound 3D compatiable to ensure that you will be able to run all of today's games without a single glitch.  PCI 64-Q3D offers a unique QSound surround which you can enable to create a surround field for your game playing of audio pleasure.  This function can also be found on S3 based SonicVibes soundcards. Most of these lower end cards do not offer you superior quality or wonderful positional surround sound as compared to the more expensive cards, but they sure are much more affordable.

Nothing is like a review without running this card with industry latest gaming softwares.  Including EPIC Unreal, Need For Speed III, Commando, Age of Empire Expansion and SHOGO.  All ran flawlessly and without a single glitch, offers fairly good sound playback.  Driver updates can also be obtain from AZTECH Singapore based website.

Benchmark

Using the latest ZD's Audio WinBench 99 software.

• Audio WinBench 99 is a new ZD benchmark that focuses on audio subsystem of a PC. It's tests give you both an overall comparative measure and a subjective measure of a PC's audio subsystem's performance. As a result, Audio WinBench 99 contains a mix of automated tests and interactive tests.
• Audio WinBench 99 includes eight automated tests in the Audio CPU Utilization Tests suite. Four use Direct Sound, while the other four use Direct Sound 3D. All these tests measure the amount of CPU that the sound subsystem uses for common operations, such as playing sounds at 22 kHz and 44.1 kHz, 8 bit and 16 bit from both static buffer and steaming buffer.

The benchmark results of this card are listed below. Running Windows 98 Environment and with the installed DirectX Version 6.1 to allow viewers with a peek at the performance of this card at future operation standards. So here they are: