Asus nforce2 deluxe, whats up with the built in sound!

unsped

Platinum Member
Mar 18, 2000
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i just got an asus nforce2 deluxe board

question is ... it has the nforce soundstorm apu AND a alc650 chip (realtek ac97 chip)

i was under the impression is uses the nforce sound, and not another onboard sound ( in this case realtek )

*and yes this is the dual nic version, not the non-deluxe board
 

RanDum72

Diamond Member
Feb 11, 2001
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This has been rehashed a few hundred times. The Realtek CODEC is just the input/output stages of the sound. The nvidia APU does the actual processing but it needs the Realtek codec to output sound. Some manufacturers may pair the nvidia APU with an nvidia CODEC, others may use a different one such as the mentioned Realtek or maybe Crystal. But the bottom line is, its the nvidia APU that does the muscle work and you get the goodies such as Dolby Digital encoding on the fly, etc...
 

ObiDon

Diamond Member
May 8, 2000
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So are all nforce/nforce2 boards capable or real-time DD encoding? Or are some not?

I've noticed that quite a bit of the motherboards don't come with a bracket for optical/coaxial sound output. Although, I could have sworn that I saw packaging for a board that said it had optical-out built into one of the 1/8" speaker jacks...:confused:
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
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Only the MCP2-T southbridge includes the APU (as well as Firewire). Not all boards use the MCP2-T, some use the MCP2 instead. Even if the MCP2-T is present, that doesn't prevent a board maker from ignoring it and using some other audio solution (Chaintech comes to mind here).

The S/PDIF bracket may be an optional part, as is the case with EPoX's 8RDA+. Even Asus' A7N8X-Deluxe, which has an S/PDIF-out (RCA jack) can also be equipped with an optional bracket to allow S/PDIF-in. For the board to have nVidia's "Soundstorm" certification, it needs to come with some form of digital-out. Or that's my understanding, anyway.