Soundcard qu. please - PC to A/V reciever

[RickyS]

Hi there,

I'm currently in the process of purchasing the following items:

1. Sony 40X3000 LCD tv
2. Onkyo 605 A/V reciever
3. Kef 3005SE 5.1 Speaker package

I intend to directly connect the video from my PC to the lcd tv - by using a DVI to HDMI cable from my Geforce 7800GTX video card

I have no idea what to do about the audio. My initial thoughts are to use a digital out to the Onkyo 605 A/V reciever which will subsequently output the sound to the speakers.

I have been looking at the Creative XiFi sound card series but am not sure what I should be looking for?

Ultimately I hope to recieve HD audio sound from PC movies via the A/V reciever and video via the lcd. In addtion to this, I have some PC speakers that I would like to use when using the PC for standard processing tasks etc.

Is this possible? Any advice anyone can provide is most appreciated!!

Many thanks,
Ricky

[james.miller]

if you want hd audio you'll need a hdmi output from the pc that can output 7.1 LPCM (nothing can from the pc atm) or 7.1 analogue outputs. since analogue is the only real way right now, you should be looking for the best quality analogue card you can find. the two cards at the top of the game are the x-fi relude and the xonar D2. the xonar d2 is cheaper and just edges out on the analogue output quality. the prelude is more expensive, is based on an x-fi and its drivers(both a pro and a con) and slightly inferior outputs.

if i were you id go for the cheaper card. well, i did anyway