ABIT SP50 Home Theater Speakers & AU10 Sound Card

AU10 Sound Card

ABIT’s multichannel sound card is based around the ForteMedia FM801-AS chip.  The highlights that this chip contributes to the card include support for multiple speakers, SPDIF output, and joystick compatibility.  It offers more functions through software support, such as 3D positional audio and a 64 voice wavetable for MIDI support; however, these programs do require CPU time that can affect performance in other areas.

The chip is combined with a G9 multipin connector for surround sound output; three 1/8” miniplug connections provide interfaces for a microphone, front speakers (independent of the surround output), and a line in for using external equipment.  Finally, there is a joystick connector for either game playing or, via adapter, interfacing MIDI components.

As far as digital audio connections are concerned, the outside of the card does not contain the SPDIF connection that is advertised in the specifications.  Instead, the optical SPDIF connection listed is available via a daughterboard that is not included with the card; it is still in the design phase and should be available in mid October for about $20. Those of us wanting some sort of digital interface to external equipment will have to wait a while for this option.  This is a little disappointing, as this would be the cleanest source of audio when interfacing to external components.

Overall, the card is fairly straightforward, offering 6 outputs.  The ForteMedia core is a moderate audio chip, but nothing that blows away the competition in performance.  Much of the features the card supports rely on the CPU for execution, including both the surround sound decoding and any 3D gaming effects.  For extreme gamers, the CPU based audio processing may not pose the strongest solution as this could slow game performance.

The included DVD playback program, WinDVD, serves as a software based DVD decoder, also requiring CPU time for video and surround sound decoding.  As a result, some points in DVD movies may experience a lag, or loss of continuous playback.  When accessing the CPU for both image processing and surround sound decoding, these effects could become more of a problem.  If the computer is just processing the movie, the effects are minimized, but when competing for CPU time, the movie playback can experience some glitches.  In this test, the DVD playback lagged visually at only one point while its audio tracks continued.  However, this was not a result of the surround sound CPU usage as it continued with the 5.1 function disabled, indicating that the visual processing was experiencing the slowdown.