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[Demophobe]

To all of you who have been disappointed by mediocre AC97 sound for so long, Intel HD Audio is coming!

Some changes:

Intel's HD Audio

The HD Audio initiative, formerly codenamed Azalia, had several goals to improve the lot of motherboard-down audio solutions:

* Intel's HD Audio specification defines the controller, link, and board implementation of motherboard-down audio hardware.

* Seeks to create a single audio driver that can be used with all compliant hardware.

* Supports up to 15 simultaneous audio streams, supporting resolutions up to and including 192KHz/24-bit to enable two-channel playback for DVD-Audio and enough bandwidth for 96KHz/24-bit multichannel DVD-A. No DVD-Audio player application with full support of encrypted DVD-A is yet available, however. HD Audio also allows multiple codecs on a single motherboard to operate autonomously. One codec would drive the rear speaker outputs, a second could accommodate line-level input coming in from front-panel jacks, as well as microphone and headphone jacks. These two audio sections can operate independently of one another.

* Allow multiple codecs on a single motherboard to operate autonomously. One codec would drive the rear speaker outputs, a second could accommodate line-level input coming in from front-panel jacks, as well as microphone and headphone jacks. These two audio sections can operate independently of one another.

See http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/hdaudio.htm for more info.

Wow...PCI Express, DDR2, HD Audio...Grantsdale/Alderwood (925X/915 chipsets), Enhanced SATA, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900, Pentium 4 LGA775 socket (though still at 800MHz FSB....we will have to wait for 1066 )...things are looking good for Intel-based systems. This on the heels of the Prescott 3.6GHz release. For the AMDers out there, nVidia is leading the charge with the same feature set.

Intel is only one of the players in the sound revolution...Analog Devices, SigmaTel, C-Media and Via all will be throwing their hats in the ring...we will see what the other (besides Intel) mainboard producers come up with.

Christmas is looking expensive already!