The nForce2 APU was a purely digital component, and that motherboard manufacturers still had to use codec chips such as the 650 from Realtek for the audio output functions, including the necessary digital to analog conversion (DAC). After the demise of SoundStorm, codec chips such as the Realtek 850 have become standard integrated audio solutions, with audio processing functions offloaded on the host processor. As such, the quality of the device drivers is very important to ensure reasonably low host processor usage, without audio quality issues.