HDMI Pass thru audio cards, are they really needed in a HTPC these days?

Been a reader for a time but a noob when it comes to audio and posting here. Just a few some dumb questions. Please be nice and thanks in advance for the advice.

I dont yet use seperates (or an audio reciever for that matter) but I do have my eye on moving in that direction in the next 12 months or so down the road.

I'd really like to start playing Blu-rays on the living room plasma, but instead of going with a seperate Blu-ray player or a HTIB, among other things I just picked up a HD 6850 and a Plextor PX-8940 blu-ray burner to use in a dedicated HTPC/gaming rig.

My audio setup is currently limited to 5.1 M-Audio LX-3's and an older PCI Creative x-Fi. Since I also like to stream classical, so I was thinking I might want to get better card to get more out of these studio monitors.

There's been lots of stuff written here about the HDMI 1.3 Auzentech HomeTheater & Xonar HDAV 1.3., folks fighting both cards, but overall most seem happy.

But with the newer HDMI 1.4 video cards like the HD 6850 i have, are those style of audio card really necessarry. Could I just play Blu-rays by hooking up my HD 6850 to the TV and for now continue using the card I have for the audio?

I know the card is somewhat inferior but how much of a compromise would that be?

If a new card is more of a necessity, what direction would be best?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Thanks for the post ROBSIX,

No I don’t yet have a receiver, much less a HDMI receiver, not that I dont want one. Also, I highly doubt the Creative card I have is PAP compliant. It's at least 5 years old.

That said, I don’t exactly know how to respond as I don’t have an audio reference to try your suggestion or know how to measure if full resolution is even happening.

Would it be safe to assume that I could connect the HD6850 to the monitor and with an upgrade to a compliant card, still get full resolution audio without the need for a HDMI pass thru card?

I guess the biggest thing holding me back from going in the direction of a pass thru card is that (I'm supposing) since they are HDMI 1.3, 3d won’t work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ROBSCIX 

You have the drive, an audio card and the GFX card that can send HDMI video to your TV, what happens when you play a BD disk?.

I am in the midst of the build at the moment with a new OS still in UPS land. Should have explained that in my first post but I was trying to keep it somewhat short. I could try it tho.

But knowing I'm going to be down sampled, Since the case is open anyhow, maybe it would be better for me to just upgrade now.  

What would a better choice be, a pass thru card like the 1.3 Auzentech HomeTheater or a traditional 7.1 card like X-Meridian, Essence, Claro+, or even an Onkyo SE-200 (since the SE-300 is pretty much way over priced at this point..)?

The build is build is an Asus P8Z68 Deluxe/Gen3, 35w i5 2390, a passive Prolimatech Armageddon, PowerColor passive HD 6850, a C300 & a M4 Crucial SSD together in RAID 0, the Plextor PX940 blu-ray burner, Ceton cable card, Kingwin 500w silent, a few Noctua case fans, all stuffed in a Silverstone CW02
 

Robsix,

Thanks for the advice, I'd really prefer the HDMI support if I'm buying something.

But unless I'm missing something both the Auzen HomeTheater & Xonar HDAV are HDMI 1.3. So that means no 3D video or support for upcoming Hi Res(3480 x2160p). That said, at least there's a chance that within the next 12-18 months one or two quality HDMI 1.4 pass thru audio card will surface.

In the mean time, can anyone make a few recommendations for a PAP compliant card with good drivers and customer support that won't bust the bank, but still be a solid upgrade from my current 5 year old x-Fi?

There is so much out there to choose from my head is spinning.

Nameless,

Yup, the Realizer is indeed quite something. Past my reach as well. Care to offer any arrow pointing as alternatives?

I've never had much of a focus on cans, not that I don’t like them but more because I just haven’t had time to do much gaming. Or chilling to good tunes for that matter. When I'm home I doubt my wife would tolerate me hiding inside of some headphones. But at least I have work .... 

Anyhoo, I'm still with the dilemma of either choosing a card that would simply be an upgrade from my 5 year old pci x-Fi and then wait for a HDMI 1.4 pass thru card, or just go for either the Auzen or Xonar 1.3 pass thru.

What a dilemma. What do you think?

That helps for sure, were you set up with an AVR or running the Auzen direct to your TV monitor?

It looks like either way I'll be dropping $150 - $200 to upgrade from what I have no matter what direction I go in. Trust me I'd rather build and be done with this for a few years...I can’t even begin to tell you how much time I have researching all this, and it ain't even built yet. Just the standard build BS.

For example, a Silverstone rep basically lied outright to me so I would buy their ginormus CW-02. He stated flatly there would be no clearance issue using the new ASUS  HD6770 silent card (it has a very long passive cooler on it). I really didn’t want to go to the fanless Powercolor HD6850 SCS3 I ended up with because of the extra heat. Of course you know what happened...Of course when asked he was speaking of height clearance not length clearance and stopped emailing me.

Word to the wise, if you have a long video card stay away from any HTPC case that has a center mounted optical drive, it just won’t fit. Now that I have the Silverstone case, I'm stuck with it.

But at least the PSU is mounted away from the CPU cooler unlike the Thermaltake DH103 (my other choice). I had to go with these tall cases since I wanted to use a high efficiency, condo style CPU cooler and have the rear case fan blowing at it as a way eliminate another fan. I really wanted to go with the Lian LI (for it's fan setup) but it just wasnt tall enough to house a 160mm + cooler.

Bench testing this with the 35w i5 2390 @ 2.7Ghz has me idling at 34c and I'm hoping to get away with cooling the GPU with a 26db cross flow fan that's designed for the case using a variable speed header. The drives and OS will be here in a day or so and I'm really looking forward to load testing this thing.

Only time will tell, and thanks for the advice. .

I also saw in the Auzen on line manual that you can bypass the AVR all toghether (how I was planning to set up to start with).

But I also remember reading on their site that for full audio fuctionality the card had to output to a AVR. Do you remember anything like that Robscix when you were working with the card?

No one is saying much about the Xonar 1.3 here. Is it anathema?