Manufacturer:

Intel - Intel D815EPFV motherboard

Chipset:

Analog Devices AD1885

3D Sound and Reverb Engine:

Sensaura

Drivers:

No reference drivers - drivers available only from motherboard vendors shipping AD1885 based products.

Suggested Retail Price

N/A - integrated sound in motherboard.  Pricing will vary from motherboard to motherboard.

Cables:

N/A

Bundle:

As this is a reference review of the SoundMAX audio system bundles will vary depending on the specific motherboard you are buying.

 I/O Availability

Front

Yes- 1/8” stereo

Rear

Only on optional CNR card - 1/8” stereo

Center

Only on optional CNR card - 1/8” stereo shared with sub

Sub

Only on optional CNR card (1/8” stereo shared with center) - system operates in large speaker mode.

CD Analog

Yes

CD Digital

No

Auxiliary

Yes

Microphone

1/8” stereo

Line input

1/8” stereo

Wavetable header

No

Digital Output

Optical output only on optional CNR card

Digital Input

No

AC3 Decoding:

Not integrated but works with software DVD players

AC3 Encoding:

No

Equalizer or effect mode (e.g. Concert Hall preset)

Yes - reverb presets and bass boost

Sound quality: 

Pure sound quality is very good, while it's not quite at the level offered by the Cirrus Logic 4630 products such as the Santa Cruz or Creative's Audigy, it's more than good enough to satisfy the majority of casual listeners.  View detailed test results

Games:

It offers excellent support for A3D 1, DirectSound, DS3D (all with plenty of 3D channels), I3DL2, EAX and EAX2 and the reverb quality while not as consistent as the Live or Audigy is overall quite good in EAX 2 titles and generally a positive aspect of gaming on this product. Two-speaker, headphone and four-speaker 3D audio from Sensaura's engine is simply outstanding with both the two speaker and headphone modes arguably being the current top of the market.  It's also one of the few if not only products to use the Sensaura MultiDrive5.1 engine for 6 channel gaming. 

DVD:

AC3/DTS pass-thru should works with WinDVD and PowerDVD (but fails on the test system).  Two, 4 and 6 channel analog output works correctly.

Two speaker mode out of the box offers a ‘Virtual Theatre Surround’ feature where  SoundMAX will automatically create virtual speakers through your stereo speaker setup when this is enabled.  The default algorithms that ship with the card are only somewhat effective, clearly better than just stereo but not as good as the 2 speaker mode offered by Philips and QSound or if you choose to upgrade to Sensaura’s custom algorithms (for a cost).  That Sensaura upgrade also adds headphone virtualization support.

Summary 

In keeping with our practice for reference reviews no award is given because the award takes into consideration other aspects such as retail price, bundle etc.  Having said that, I expect that Analog Devices will change many people minds about integrated audio in a very positive way with their SoundMAX audio to the point where they won't feel the need to upgrade to dedicated PCI sound card.