On 11/12/2013 5:37 PM, Jon N wrote:
...
There is one an area that I'm pretty unsure of. I am planning on
purchasing a Nvidia video card and disabling the built in Intel video
support. Since I plan to use this computer as a MythTV
frontend/backend (as well as for general web browsing/email) getting
the audio out on the Nvidia card's HDMI port is important to my
particular setup. So will the audio automatically be switched to the
Nvidia cards HDMI connector?
No, it won't be automatic. And frankly I don't believe nVidia supports
HDMI digital audio pass through, nor any discrete GPU card. For
argument's sake, let's say it does. Then you run into the problem that
the onboard audio chip can't pass digital audio through PCIe to the
nVidia HDMI port. None of them are designed to do this, that I'm aware of.
If I were you I'd get a mainboard with with HDMI out and use the CPU's
GPU. Mobos that have onboard HDMI have their audio chips wired to the
HDMI port, the chips support PCM/AC3 digital output, and selecting the
HDMI output for digital audio is pretty straightforward.
The Intel GPU should be plenty powerful enough for HD1080 output. If
you decide it's not, and want to add a discrete card, you'll need a mobo
with coaxial digital SPDIF output, or Toslink optical digital output,
and a TV or A/V receiver that is cable of using an HDMI input for video
while using coax or Toslink for audio. Nearly all modern A/V receivers
support this. WRT LCD/Plasma TVs I have no idea how many support this.