Can anyone point me to some information regarding CPU usage/RAM footspace differences between the Acoustic Edge and the Live! series and any other cards out there? I'm primarily using my MX300 right now because it has lower CPU usage than the Live!, plus it supports SMP...but if I start hearing more good things about that Acoustic Edge, I may just switch.

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"The only other thing to really settle on is the actual hit in CPU performance when using the sound card. Running our standard benchmarks, using ZDnet's Audiobench, we found the sound card definitely ate up some extra cycles. Compared to a stock SBLive and a Vortex 2 based card, the Acoustic Edge eats up from 2-5 times more CPU (up to 5% of the CPU, vs. 0.5-2.5% on the other cards). Philips intends on continuing to optimize drivers, but 5% CPU usage is actually quite good, when considering that on the multi speaker tests the QMSS was actually in effect. "

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/H...e_psc706/6.html

I have the card and I think it's top notch. I have qmss off since I don't regularly watch dvd's on my computer.

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I read some benchmarks back in the day comparing the Live! to an MX300, and I read that the CPU utilization was about 19% compared to 17%. It did seem kinda high to me, but definitely WAY off from what that up there says...

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Thanks for the info!

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"And knowing is half the battle!"

Gamer's Depot has a review that said that Acoustic Edge has knocked Sound Blaster Live off its perch as best sound per dollar. here is the urlhttp://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/sound_cards/philips/acoustic_edge/001.htm