New Audio: High Definition Audio : Intel Stakes Its Vision of the PC Future with 775 Launch

Tom's Hardware > Articles & reviews > Intel Stakes Its Vision of the PC Future with 775 Launch

New Audio: High Definition Audio

07:00 - Saturday 19 June 2004 by Patrick Schmid
Source: Tom's Hardware – Keywords: intel, stakes, its, vision, of, the, pc, future, with, 775, launch

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New Audio: High Definition Audio

The last noteworthy feature on the next chipset generation is the audio subsystem. The AC97 standard has been around for years now with only inadequate improvements. Intel decided to bring the audio system forward in three directions by raising audio quality, offering valuable features and adding the Dolby certificate.

High Definition Audio stands for 192-kHz, 24 bit, 8-channel audio. The Dolby certificate is a matter for the motherboard manufacturer to take care of, but three are three other interesting features: Multi-streaming support (which enables routing different audio sources to different output devices), jack re-tasking and support for array microphones.

As most audio features, re-tasking needs to be implemented by the motherboard manufacturer. If it's done entirely, you can plug in your headset connector into any available stereo jack. Array microphones allow you to transfer 3D audio information. Example: If you're holding a VoIP phone conference with your dialog partner, he will be able to estimate the position in your room - provided that he has surround sound and also knows your location.