For the actual behavior in action, we took our three favorite games (Quake 3, Comanche 4, and Splinter Cell) and included in the comparative graphics the previous version of Audigy 2 (Platinum EX) as well as Terratec Aureon Space, another recent 7.1 card. Naturally, the Audigy 2 ZS is configured in 7.1! In Quake 3, the move to 7.1 seems to have resulted in a noticeable reduction in performance. The result is better than with Terratec but definitely not as good as that of the Platinum EX. In Comanche 4, things were very different because we obtained a much better performance than from the competition! Finally, with Splinter Cell, the ZS obtained exactly the same result as the Platinum EX. So the result is always good with more or less significant variations depending on the resources on which the game in question relies. Splinter Cell automatically activates EAX 3 where it recognizes it, which has slightly handicapped the performance of the Audigy 2 in comparison with the other brands.