Stereo Tool

Well, I'm officially disappointed in the desktop versions of Haswell. They only give a very small increase in performance for CPU tasks. In my opinion, Haswell is not worth it on the desktop. Laptops though, that's where the benefit is there with the lower power consumption.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, I would really like to get a new system. I've just about decided that it will be Ivy Bridge, but the only lingering question about Haswell I have is if the Realtek ALC1150 audio chipset that is on several boards from several different manufacturers can offer quality of the same level as my X-Fi XtremeGamer card. I don't have the high-end Titanium or Elite card, but the XGamer is an actual X-Fi chip. The next step down, the XtremeAudio, was actually a rebranded Audigy SE with a software implementation.

I have looked and looked for a review that goes into detail, and I found one at legitreviews. It uses RightMark Audio Analyzer. So, I figured I'd download that and try to run it. Bzzzt! When I fire it up, it crashes before it fully loads. I had a similar problem with the RightMark memory analyzer, although I think that one just silently went poof without a WinXP crash report.

So, naturally, I searched for "RightMark Audio Analyzer crash". I have found no meaningful search results.

So, questions:

1) Has anyone tried to use RightMark Audio Analyzer?
2) If so, did it crash, and if so, what did you do to fix it?

Also, if anyone finds a real good review of any of the Haswell boards that have higher quality onboard solutions from Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, ECS, or others, can you please post it here?

Hi Brian,

The views I express as answers to your queries would be very subjective. Nonetheless here they are...

Despite the hype surrounding Haswell promising more efficient architecture, I too am greatly disappointed by its desktop lineage. Bear in mind I am no overclocking enthusiast. So, for me K series is not of much use or interest. For non-K series I see substantial hike in TDP against an ivy-bridge of similar specs. Case in point i7 3770@77W vs i7 4770@84W.
All that hype surrounding AVX2, better iGPU isn't something that would convince even a Sandy Bridge owner to switch.
So eventually I second your decision to go for an IB. And then the deciding factor, as expected, boils down to choice of MB.

About RightMark, yes back in 2011, I did try that software with my Asus M5A88 M EVO running Phenom II X4 with Windows 7 x64. I was able to gather information on ALC892 comfortably.

Not sure about recent versions though. I didn't bother running it against my Asus Xonar Essence ST

One thing I can tell you for sure - despite that 115 dB SNR and dedicated HP amp, on-board audio is still no way close to mid-high range dedicated sound-cards. My new MoBo - Asrock Z77 Xtreme 4 has Realtek ALC898 - specs sheet on Realtek site says it has a 110 dB SNR. To me it sounded like so muffled, devoid of details - in short absolutely worthless addition to MoBo price.

For any serious monitoring and/or calibration work it's better to stick with a dedicated sound card from reputed brands.

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visit website

well when it comes Realtek, and i tested 888 and 889, i would always choose Realtek over ANY creative soundcard (except EM-U).
Ofcourse MB should be good designed since card is onboard and good PSU.

Well, I had been strictly looking at the ASUS boards. It's down to the one that Bojcha suggested, the Z77 LE-Plus for IB, or the Z87-A for Haswell, which are at the same price right now. In my opinion, and maybe I'm wrong, and I'll do more comparisons later today after sleep, but I *think* that the Z87-A is actually an inferior board. Then there's the Z87-Plus, but, again, I need to compare it against the LE-Plus.

So, my question about the ALC1150 chipset came about because of thinking to spend slightly more money and go for the Z87-Pro. If I do that though, I lose legacy PCI, so I cannot bring my X-Fi over to the new board.
I figured out the issue with the crashing. On all of the 3rd party download sites, those sites list the latest version as compatible with XP. If you go to the RightMark site though, the notes say that the latest version currently does not support XP.

So, when I have some more time, I'll find an older version.
That's why I need to retain a legacy PCI slot, in case the 889 or 892 doesn't sound good enough to me.
This is where the difference between us comes into play again. The X-Fi I have uses the same E-mu chip (EMU20K1). My card is not limited to 16/44.1, but can do 24/96, and higher, I think. X-Fi is consumer / prosumer, while E-mu is marketed for professionals. From what I've read from a Creative rep (I'll find the article later), the basic difference between X-Fi and E-mu is that stuff like Crystalizer (software) isn't included, and the E-mu cards are more tailorable (configurable). I do not need a professional level card, like E-mu or Juli@ / Maya, or whatever else is out there that uses RCA outs, or esoteric lo-z or hi-z (not esoteric for broadcasting or recording). I'm not a broadcaster or recorder / engineer. I'm just a lowly hobbyist / consumer / prosumer.

Interesting thought that I have had:

Is there any GOOD quality PCI Express x1 to Legacy PCI converter card?

I'm starting to think about spending the extra for Haswell, and going for the ASUS Z87-Expert. That doesn't have legacy PCI though. It does however give dual-band WiFi, which I'd really like to be able to start using to be able to have knowledge of WiFi signal mapping / tracking / troubleshooting, as it may be needed during a job. The other way to go is still with the Z87-A and a TP-Link WiFi card, but I still feel that the Z87-A is an inferior board when compared to the P8Z77-V LE PLUS, P8Z77-V, or the P8Z77-V Pro. I was leaning towards the V Pro, again due to built-in WiFi (single band), better wired LAN (Intel vs. Realtek), a better VRM, and 1 additional fan connector. One other Haswell board was the Z87-PLUS, but no WiFi, and when I add the cost of the TP-Link card, the total price is higher than just buying the Z87-Expert.

By the way, I finally heard something about the job yesterday, and had a meeting today. Basically, I got the job, but it hasn't officially started yet. Pay is lower than I had hoped, but it's ok. Anything is more than nothing. I have a couple of additional sources of income that I could use (Savings Bonds and a life insurance policy), but I was hoping not to dip into those.