MB with Dolby Digital worth it?

[enkichild]

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128510

I was wondering if anyone could help me understand more about the Dolby Home Theater present on this motherboard. What I'm looking for is great sound output for gaming, so I want true 5.1 or 7.1 headphone experience. Will this motherboard enable that for me?

From what I understand, you have to use a USB headset because analog wont work. I also don't think soundcards are used still for gaming, because I can't find any on newegg.

If you have a nice sound setup for headphones let me know what it is.

btw I was also considering the MSI military grade AM3+ MB

 

[itzdanielp]

Dolby is merely a codec that decodes a digital signal into 6 or 8 separate streams depending on the setup you have.

That board merely means that it has a hardware chip that does the work instead of a piece of software.

In order to even play back in surround using that chip you have to be sure that your surround source is encoded using the Dolby codec. Which most games / movies are.

Just an FYI, using a DTS surround codec will give you better sound, as it is not compressed as highly as the Dolby counterpoint.

Analog will work, but you have to have separate inputs for surround, which is why headsets won't really work.

You would have to have 1 input for LR, 1 for Back LR, 1 for a Center, and 1 for a sub. The headsets do these all virtually, instead of 6 separate speakers, which is why they are USB, because they need a program to control it.

 

[enkichild]

"That board merely means that it has a hardware chip that does the work instead of a piece of software. "

Would this increase performance in games?

 

[itzdanielp]

Not on modern computers. maybe 5-10 years ago it would, but it is light processing, and modern CPU's are powerful enough to easily do it without impacting performance at all. If it did it may be a difference of 1 or 2 fps.

 

[jaquith]

The GA-990XA-UD3 has the Realtek ALC889 -> http://www.realtek.com/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=28&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=173 the the 'Decoding' for: Dolby, DTS, SRS, etc is all software.

Even the cheap GA-970A-D3 has the ALC889, just add the software -> http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/technology/codecs.html or that comes buried on the MOBO CD/DVD. Windows 7 -> http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/product/pc/software/microsoft-windows-7.html includes Dolby Digital Plus.