Allis, there doesn't seem to be much difference. I don't know if I'm running it through a host. I just have Akoustik piano's main program, a midi connection to my Roland, and using the Sound Card that is installed on this ASUS. I have an Intel Celeron M 353 @ 900 Mhz. Realtek HD Audio input and output. Using PC Wizard I found that I was getting 791.65 global performance.