newbie question - MSI GTX580 Lightning Extreme - HDMI sound?

[sysdawg]

I have an MSI GTX580 Lightning Extreme and a ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe motherboard. I am thinking of getting an AVR and ocaissionally routing video and audio to the AVR (which will be hooked up to a plasma and higher-quality speakers) rather than my desktop LCD and PC-quality speakers. My question is this: the MSI documentation is weak but says

"HDMI 1.3a Support - Fully integrated support for HDMI 1.3a including xvYCC, Deep color and 7.1 digital surround sound."

Does the sound come from the motherboard (Realtek ALC889) and then get routed through the HDMI connector on the MSI videocard, or is it from the videocard itself? I am interested in the highest-quality sound and not sure whether I should be getting only an HDMI cable and hooking it up to the MSI videocard, or also getting a coax digital cable and hooking it up from the motherboard to the AVR for sound.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[Jaydip]

The sound will come from ur video card not the Realtek ALC889 .HDMI is a combined standard for both audio and video

 

[KingFatty]

Yes, apparently the video card has its own audio chip, probably similar quality/features to the on-board motherboard video. While I don't have an Nvidia card, I know that my video card will install a separate audio device for the video card.

I find it odd that nowhere can you find reviews to evaluate the quality of video card sound cards, nor can you find whether using the video card sound card will improve your CPU performance.