Gainward Hollywood@Home 7.1 comparable to AV-710?

[ShYtFaCe]

Gainward here on Newegg, uses the Envy 24HT-S, but also has EAX support (only 2.0 but AFAIK the Chaintech doesn't support EAX at all). For a gaming rig is there any reason why this wouldn't be just as good if not better than the Chaintech thanks to EAX?

 

[Illah]

Doesn't seem to have the High Quality 2 channel output like the 710, I don't see a Wolfson DAC either. So in that case it's not as good.

--Illah

 

[Mr.Radar]

The Gainwood uses a different DAC on the 7/8 output which is only average quality. The Chaintech is much better, and since they use the same chipset they should also support the same drivers (I have not tried this myself though). EDIT: Also, any EAX support is likely CPU emulated, and not hardware accelerated like on the Audigy.

 

[Zoofy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Radar The Gainwood uses a different DAC on the 7/8 output which is only average quality. The Chaintech is much better, and since they use the same chipset they should also support the same drivers (I have not tried this myself though). EDIT: Also, any EAX support is likely CPU emulated, and not hardware accelerated like on the Audigy.

Has anyone seen a review that tests Hollywood@Home's Cirrus DAC quality? As far as I know, 2 channel stereo mode (uses Cirrus dac) with high rate option enabled produces better sound than other analog output modes. How does it compare to Audigy 2 when using 2 channel analog output ?