GeForce 8200 - 8 Channel LPCM Output Fully Supported!! - Page 8

I guess that makes sense. He did mention the "ADD addon" a couple posts later, so I thought that he was stating that the G35 boards need an HDMI ADD2 card, which they do not.

-Dave

Sorry, that's an error on my part. I realize the ADD addon is not necessary with the G35. I guess in my frustration I vented bad data. My apologies.

I still stand by my comments that the G35 is in essence an orphaned product, and people would be much better off waiting for the G45 on the Intel side, or the 8300 on the Nvidia side.

My local distributer also confirmed the delay in the 8[23]00 parts. His source at the OEM's is now saying late march as well.

I suspect that many of the issues with the G35 will also plague the G45. For example, HDMI audio does not work with Denon AVR's because the Denons provide EDID data that Intel considers to be non-standard. Intel has not hinted that they will change their position, so I suspect that Denon AVRs will not work with the G45 either. Who knows how nVidia will handle this issue.

I am very happy with my G35 Asus P5E-V, but I know others are not happy with the Asus G35 boards. I have been enjoying 8-channel PCM output over HDMI at 24-bit / 96kHz for about six weeks, and it looks like at will be another month or two before there is any competition.

As far as the G35 being an orphaned product, I am not too worried about that. The G45 is pretty similar, so I suspect there will be driver support for a while. Also, motherboards are not that expensive. It works well for me in Vista now, so I will be content to enjoy HDMI audio for a year or two while the other solutions mature.

However, given the problems that others have been had, I think your advice to wait at this point is pretty sound. My old HTPC was a 32-bit Athlon XP 3200+ nForce2 system, so I really needed to build a new PC and could not wait much longer.

-Dave

Add me to the list of people advising AGAINST the G35. Lots of driver issues - particularly with TVs with overscan. Also you need Vista to take advantage of HDMI PCM audio out (as far as I know anyways). At least they dropped the price for Vista...

Performance also seems rather poor - CPU usage is too high so you need to spend more on a faster (and hotter) processor. Might as well wait a couple of months for low-power low-noise low-heat products with builtin video acceleration. That's my advice.

Well, I'm sure glad I didn't take the advice of the people who seem to be marketing the ever-delayed products in this thread.

Got my G35 last night, installed it in about 15 minutes (just swapped out my MB), and it works perfectly.

8-channel LPCM over HDMI, with full BD and HDDVD playback, and no more than about 40% CPU usage. No problems at all, everything works great.

Only issues I have are around all 8 channels being sent all the time, but that was the same as when using analog, so this might be an Onkyo issue, a general LPCM issue, or maybe something they can fix in the audio driver.

But this is basically exactly what I was looking for - one HDMI cable, and support for full, uncompressed digital sound from my BD/HD ISO's.

My advice to anyone out there who is tired of waiting, the G35's are fine. I would only avoid them if you have a Denon AVR (there is some LPCM issue with them), or aren't ripping your BD/HD discs (repeater/HDCP issue).

I'm off to enjoy it some more!

How powerful is your CPU?

I'm pretty sure it's a C2D 2.4. I don't 100% remember what I ended up putting in this PC, as I was rotating some stuff around when I built it. But I think I put the lower-end one in here, so I'm about 95% sure it's a 2.4.

Edit: Nope, just checked, it's a 2.66 E6750. I'm not OC'ing at all (and PCProbe says my CPU is running at 12C, which seems crazy cool).

That's kind of the most important part, isn't it? Otherwise it's just marketing hype. We know they will be released, the point is when, and what do we do in the meantime?

I highly recommend getting a G35. If you don't have a Denon, it's awesome and works right out of the box for HD video and HD audio all over a single HDMI cable.

For anyone following that advice and wanting a G35 full ATX board, mine is on "th_e bay" (I have a Denon )

For me, the problem with G35 is that it doesn't support HD playback with XP. Vista has too many bugs to use in a high-end audio setup.

780G looks ok (if one doesn't need 8 channel LPCM output), but doesn't score as good as G35. I'm also not sure if 780G is safe in a fanless cabinet, seems like the northbridge gets quite warm. Hopefully Geforce 8200/8300 are coming soon and will be the answer.

That's just anti-Microsoft sentiment. Vista is perfectly stable, and more than adequate for a high-end audio setup. What specifically do you have an issue with when using Vista v. XP? As far as I know, video and audio bit-depth is the same for both, and the only other issues are vendor drivers, which are easily resolved.

I'm not an expert on the area, but that's what I've heard from people who have looked into it deeply. I'm not anti-Microsoft at all, but I trust these people. It probably also depends on what soundcare one is using and which DSP software. I see several are complaining about bugs with Vista when using Lynx.

Except none of that matters when you're sending the digital audio over optical or HDMI. There's no DAC or transcoding going on, so soundcards are also pretty irrelevent.

So - for what we're talking about here, which is sending the digital audio to your AVR, and then using your AVR's DAC's and matrixing, Vista is a great solution, and there's no reason to use anything else.

Unless someone knows otherwise.

Fudzilla has a story that says these will be released by the end of the month. I will definately be picking one up!

I'm not planning on using neither opical or HDMI for audio, but analogue outputs. An AVR is also out of the question. I think very few who use a HTPC in a high-end system use an AVR. Good soundcard directly fed into poweramps. Sorry for the off-topic.

^ This thread was mainly discussing motherboards that can support 8 channel LPCM output. If you are going to be using analogue outs, I would think there are plenty of motherboards to choose from that you can add a nice soundcard to.

Well if you are going analog right out of the PC, then who cares about the 8200 chipset?

The title of the thread is 8 channel LPCM finially supported. This thread is about HDMI Video + Audio. If you are doing analog, solutions have been out for a long long time. Simply grab a p35 chipset and stuff an ATI 3450 passive video card on there, done.

Lynx problems are driver issues by the way. Vista changed alot of stuff, that doesn't mean vista is buggy or bad, it means hardware company's need to adapt. Small niche players take the longest to catch up.

A lot of us have experienced a lot of issues with Vista in the HTPC environment. Don't accuse folks of being biased when you have no idea of the issues they have been dealing with. I run an exchange server at home, and a bunch of windows systems, including Vista, and I don't have any HTPC client running Vista now because of issues with it.

A lot of other folks are in the same shape. First you claim folks should get the G35, which is a dog, and now you say Vista is a fantastic product. Your credibility is getting to be pretty suspect...

I don't intend getting involved in the G35/ Vista mud slinging but I will add that anyone expecting NVIDIA to launch a new hardware platform with bug free driver support is pushing the boundaries of reality (at least in our universe).

Personally, I hope they get it "spot on". Not only will it be a great platform but it may even force the competition to up their game as well (which is much needed at present).

Guess time will tell.

Wo0zy

Some of this is pretty funny... my guess is that the same guys who say they will never switch from XP to Vista are the same ones who swore XP was the devil and they would never switch from good ole 98 Everyone in the audio community who switched finally to XP lamented the evils of KMixer and jumped through all sorts of hoops to guarantee bit-perfect playback - meaning they'd successfully bypased KMixer. Why ? The lousy Sample Rate Converter implemented in KMixer which added lots of distortion when re-sampling 44.1 khz to 48 khz for mixing. Re-sampling in and of itself isn't bad if done properly... KMixer's SRC stunk. Nowadays, noobies are jumping through the bit-perfect hoops and don't even know why!! A proper SRC, such as implemented in Foobar2000, the X-Fi and in Vista, will re-sample 44.1 khz audio to 48 khz with distortion products at -130+ db !!!! As with XP, after spending a month or two with Vista, I'd never go back. And as for audio problems, as mentioned above it's all driver crap... how the sound card companies let this major change in the audio system lie till the last minute is incomprehendable. Stick with XP? Forget it.... it's end of life and Protected path will NEVER get implemented. If you're satisfied with transcoding rips and storing them online, then go to it... I want a machine that I can count on to play a movie when I come home with a new one from the store... not 2 days later

Those of us who can't use a discrete graphic card for different reasons.

Curious about the reason you cannot use a discrete graphics card....

Can you expand on what you mean by a "fanless cabinet"?
The PCI express specification states that the power limits for add in cards assume "a chassis environment with a maximum internal temperature of 55ºC
on the primary component side of the add-in card and natural convection cooling in a system that provides air exchanges."
This is the closest I've seen to a definition for the thermal environment inside of a PC case. I also assume that "air exchanges" for a practical case means that at least the power supply fan is exchanging the air in the case.

My interpretation is that the 780G NB should then operate correctly if the ambient air around teh NB is 55 deg C (or less) and the case fan is exchanging the air in the case. Since AMD does not publish the data sheet for the 780G, you don't know what the max operating temperature of the die (the rectangular chip under the NB heatsink) is...

Won't fit in the case, noise, heat, cost...

ATI 2400 pro HD half-height ,fanless, $30

There are no good reasons why you can't use discrete graphics card w/ analog audio.

Also if you have have a good analog sound card you probably have a full height chasis.

Can you link where I can get a low profile 2400 pro for $30?

Some of my coworkers were just refreshed with mATX style Dells. Cute looking little boxes. Came with HD 2400 XTs, which required some driver updates to consistently recognize two monitors...

Okay not exactly $30,
$37 for the card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127299
$7 for the bracket
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814998301

$50 for a better card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131083