does chipset control sound?

[hulkMAD]

does the chipset control all sound (from a sound card)? like number of channels (4.1, 5.1, 7.1, etc)? can a motherboard not be able to produce 7.1 channel sound even if it does have a hella good Audigy 2 or something that handles 7.1?

[JohnE.]

Depends on the chipset and whether it has onboard audio or not and how many channels it supports. The nForce chipset (with the MCP-T south bridge) has 24 bit, 5.1 (6 channel) surround but I haven't seen 7.1 support in a chipset onboard audio yet.

[tony_j15]

If you have a PCI soundcard, it runs seperate from the mobo chipset; you wont see any problems like you are talking about.