[jin kim]

Anyone have experience with on board 6 channel audio built into motherboards (especially the C-Media CMI 8736)? Does DD and DTS passthru work on these things? I'm looking at buying a new motherboard and was wondering whether this is a postive feature to have (and save me the cost of a sound card). Thanks.

 

[genixia]

The cmedia 8738 chipset is a useful one for 6 channel output and also for it's spdif capabilities. I'm using one in a Zoltrix Nightingale Pro6. Try searching the forum for 'Ultimate spdif' and 'nightingale' to get a better appreciation of the chipset. I don't have any experience of any motherboards using this chipset, but from the reviews that I've read, they should be functionally identical to the Pro6.


I feel duty bound to point out that the quality of the analog outputs on a motherboard is not going to match that of a prosumer level soundcard such as the M-Audio range.