Use Graphics card mostly for audio?

porkfried

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Jan 29, 2012
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I have 2500k computer with HD 7970 card driving 3 monitors.

I just upgraded my AVR (to denon 3313) but unlike my old receiver, it
lacks analog external decoder inputs. My mobo (ASUS P7Z67V Pro Gen3)
has onboard realtek audio, which works with spdif stereo, but apparently not hdmi.

The digital audio is only pcm stereo, and I can't use the 7970 because all the
ports are in use driving monitors.

I'm thinking of adding an hd 6450 to drive external game audio? Will this work (well?) for 5.1 audio? Will the extra monitor port confuse my eyefinity settings? Should I consider a different card or method? If I use an nvidia card instead of ati,
would it improve physx games? Would it be more/less convenient to use the extra card to play movies on TV?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,
P
 

synthaside

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I'd probably look for a mid price sound card with hdmi out ,like a older asus xonar or the such , but what you are suggesting is viable , you can select the HDMI out sound from a graphics card that you aren't using you drive your machine , it just gets listed as an audio source in the sound menu , just like an additional USB or PCIE sound card , not sure about the quality of sound which is often an afterthought from a 24 quid graphics card .
 

navysealbrian

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Connect the HDMI from your 7970 into one of the HDMI IN ports on your AVR, doesn't really matter which one, but you will have to set your sound source on your AVR to that port when you want to play the audio coming from the computer. Then connect your monitor to one of the HDMI OUT ports on the AVR, I'd assume the Monitor 1 port, but you may have to check the manual for the AVR. You would only need a second cable. There's no need to buy a second graphics card or anything else.
 

porkfried

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SPDIF is an old format digital. It handles PCM stereo or can pass through DTS 5.1 if
the game encodes that... most games don't, so just stereo.

The on board HDMI port has no output, but it seems to think it does... also as stereo.

The mobo had 5.1 analog, which worked pretty well... with my old amp.

When I ran the 7970 output through the AVR, it came back as 1080... my monitors are 1920x1200,
so that ruined the eyefinity setup... The AVR doesn't give me a way to change resolution :(

The old xonor cards didn't have an hdmi port, did they?

Thanks