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CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($77.25 @ TigerDirect)
Motherboard: MSI 970A-G43 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($59.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($48.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R7 260X 1GB Video Card ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Antec Three Hundred ATX Mid Tower Case ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($19.99 @ Micro Center)
Optical Drive: LG UH12NS30 Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($84.99 @ NCIX US)
Sound Card: Asus Xonar DS 24-bit 192 KHz Sound Card ($44.99 @ NCIX US)
Other: IOGEAR GBU421 USB Bluetooth 2.1 USB Micro Adapter ($9.99)
Total: $605.16
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-21 12:33 EDT-0400)
On the contrary, a sound card would be needed for Dolby Digital Live support, which most motherboard vendors do not supply.
Best I could do with the os included. The Bluetooth adapter is listed under other.
edit: to describe necessity of sound card
So, from reading up on the subject a little bit, I can try to describe the situation of onboard vs video card. So yes, onboard chipsets are capable outputting 5.1 and 7.1. However, this is only for audio signals that are already compressed in a certain format. So playing your blueray movies should be just fine (I think). However, outside of this you will encounter problems. The sound card is needed to encode the signal or else it would simply play out as a 2.1. I'll quote an old post to better relay the info. Also, will you be using a receiver with a spdif connection?
Quote:
Okay this is going to be a bit of a long winded explanation but bare with me and read it through
Most onboard audio DACs support both 7.1 output over 3.5 mm stereo jacks. You will need to use 4 of these plugs for a 7.1 system (Front L/R, Side L/R, Rear L/R, Center / Sub). Alternatively you also have an optical connection. The optical connection conforms to the S/P-DIF specification which means that it can transmit either stereo audio or AC3 (Dolby Digital) or DTS encoded audio. The optical connection cannot be used to transmit 6 or 8 channel LPCM.
In order to use the optical connection you must have an audio source which is encoded in AC3 or DTS. You must also configure the audio filters to pass the encoded audio through without decoding it first. If you do not do this, you will only get stereo.
Difficulty: outside of videos very few PC applications have AC3/DTS encoded audio. Games perform all of their audio rendering uncompressed and don't bother to compress it because it has to be decompressed to be sent to the speakers anyway. When you see the "Dolby Digital" symbol on a game box that usually just indicates that the game has prerendered cutscenes with surround sound. Any cutscenes that use the game engine can simply use the game's audio renderer instead and avoid unnecessary complications.
In order to get arbitrary audio over optical you must buy a sound card which has support for Dolby Digital Live or DTS Live. These are real time encoding methods that will capture the uncompressed audio that would be sent to the PC speakers and encode it into an AC3/DTS bitstream that can be sent across the optical connection to an external receiver. Some motherboards have a Creative Labs sound card built in that supports this but very few do.