Which chipsets have good onboard sound?

[John Prophet]

Or, which motherboards..although it would seem to be a matter of chipset.

I am looking for something that would be ok to watch dvds etc..not necessarily for killer gaming but for decent home media stuff.

Which boards have good 4.1 or 5.1 sound??

Thanks, JP

[Telexen]

any nForce2 board has the Realtek onboard 5.1 Surround Sound that sounds great when setup right.

[Idigguns]

Most good mobo's these days have good on-board sound. The nForce2 boards in particular. If you want the best sound available, I would look into the Aopen AX4B-533, it's the one that uses vacuum tubes!

[John Prophet]

lol..might be cool for a build that really highlights "looks" as far as showing off that weird glowing tube, lol. Cuz you could tell peeps it was a tube cpu...just to watch their expression.

JP

[John Prophet]

ok for instance I am looking at this board for an example http://secure.newegg.com/app/specifi...tem=13-136-124

I see it listing 6 channel sound. I see only the regular audio jack on back. I see no other bracket included...uhh, what am I missing here?

Where do they get 6 channels from??

JP

[XxCowOfChaosxX]

some nforce 2 boards have the soundstorm APU thing(the best integ audio), but some have the realtek chip, check carefully

[ale_x13]

yeah i was wondering the same with the asus a7n8x deluxe 2.0

it advertises 5.1 (or 6.1) surround but seems to only have in, out and mic jacks in the back

[beppodmime]

If you want nForce2 5.1 or 6.1 sound, you'd want to make sure you got a "Soundstorm Certified" board, with the MCP-T southbridge. Some of the boards that do have that particular chip do not come with the additional bracket included in the packaging with the additional inputs/outputs necessary for front/rear channel sound. The Epox 8RDA+ and 8RGA+, for example, do not have these included, although you can order the bracket from Epox direct for a nominal fee. Boards that do have the brackets for these features include:
Gigabyte 7NNXP, 7N400PRO
Asus's A7N8X Deluxe does have the additional jacks on the back for S/PDIF, center/LFE and surround. You may have gotten the non-deluxe version of the board. Does yours have two LAN connectors at the back?
ABIT NF7-S has the connectors on the I/O panel as well.
MSI K7N2 has a bracket to enable surround function.

There may be others, but I'm too lazy to look. BTW, some sort of separate audio chip is going to be necessary to perform the D/A conversion for the speakers. If you want to double check whether or not the board is Soundstorm Certified, check the manufacturers website, or reviews. The only board I know of that uses the MCP-T southbridge, but does not use the Soundstorm APU, is the Chaintech Zenith series. For some unknown reason, they are using a CMedia 6 channel codec instead of the included APU.

EDIT: John, the DFI board you posted does not use the higher quality Soundstorm APU, but may in fact support 6 channel sound. I imagine the cluster of jumper-looking pins is the internal audio interface connection for the additional inputs/outputs. Maybe DFI sells some sort of bracket or something you can connect to that, or maybe they expect you to do it yourself.

[ale_x13]

i havent bought the board yet, i pick it up hopefully this weekend, but probably next weekend...

it seems to have 5 audio jacks at the back, i assume there is in, mic and out... what are the other two?

http://www20.tomshardware.com/mother...ra_400-09.html

this is the page i am getting the pic from

[Darthgary]

If I was you I would just get a good PCI sound card like the Yoyetra Turtle Beach Santa Cruz or a Audigy by Creative Labs, but yeah anything Sound Storm cert. will make for a decent audio experients.

Just make sure if you do go with onboard sound that the board actually has it, in some cases I have seen people look at the back of a MOBO box in a PC Hardware store and would se onboard 5.1 sound and stuff and find out that it has nothing that was described on the back of the box.