Epox 8RDA+ sound quality

[EluSiOn]

Recently I heard a rumor which disturb me alot.

They claimed a rival manufactor's Nforce2 motherboard (@$u$) deluxe version's onboard sound quality is better than Epox 8RDA+. (I really hope I am not violating the forum rules here)

I just could not figure it out how can it be possilbe? The same NVidia NForce2 APU, the same digital sound encoding chip by realtek and the same NVidia Universal Driver Pack, how is it possible? I know Galifrey owns both motherboard, he probably can confirm whether that statement is true or not. but... is it possible? How?

[Daniel ~]

As your asking for a comparison to be made I think this thread would be more comfortably be addressed in the AMD Topic.

[Holst]

The Asus board has more features (digital out), so you could say it has better sound.

I doubt the quality of the output is better if there using identical components to epox, although ive never used an asus NF2 board so I cant give any direct comment.

[EluSiOn]

Q. I just installed the nVidia nForce UDP v.2.00 driver package but I don÷Ö have any sound. What÷Õ wrong?
A. ASUS has a customized version of the MCP-T southbridge. They added a few extra features to the APU, which required them to change the device ID's of the APU. These drivers do not have these custom device ID's in their INF files so the drivers do not get installed. The drivers are fine to use, and work perfectly with this board, however you must install them manually. Open your device manager by right clicking on My Computer>manage>device manager and installing the drivers manually for all the sound devices in your system. Recently ASUS came up with a version 1.16 package, which despite the lower version number, is actually newer, than the 2.00 package and it is recommended you install those as the custom device ID's are no longer and issue and manual installation is no longer necessary. These drivers also resolve other issues, some of which are outlined in this FAQ.

Q. What÷Õ in this 'custom MCP-T' from ASUS then?
A. The current list of customizations that ASUS has done to the MCP-T is as follows:

* TAD (modem/speakerphone) now shows up as an option

* Microphone 2 becomes the default Microphone device

* SPDIF In support is enabled if the I/O bracket is available

Currently this is all we know that has changed from the 'default' MCP-T. At the time of this writing, it÷Õ not 100% clear on all the effects that these options have, besides the obvious. However, it can be said that if you do not use sound drivers released by ASUS that you will lose these options and your board will behave as one with a 'default' MCP-T. If the customized features of the APU do not affect you then you wont notice either way. However, if you use any of the features listed above you'll have to decide if using an nVidia nForce Reference driver is worth the not having those features.