Motherboards Z77 Motherboards on sale..

This. It's just bollocks licensing that still markets still look for When was the last time you read about a gaming needing EAX? Doom 3? It's the same as Dolby or DTS enhancements - it's all Software on the CPU. Just don't install them and have the audio 'native'. SupremeFX III basically makes onboard sound as good as 'spec sheet' as possible - the chipset will always be the weak point but if you want better you gotta upgrade.

We can't put Xonar on the motherboard PCB as it would require too much space: look at the size of Xonar cards and compare it to the space SupremeFX III has to work with. It would also make the motherboards prohibitively expensive and make the existing Xonar owner market pissed off, as a soundcard lasts several upgrade cycles.

 

Thanks for the link. Certainly, the tech looks impressive on paper. Where on-board sound has always struggled is in volume - you generally need to hook it up to external kit to get the gain. That's where I'm hoping this chip does better.

Will this tech be making it's way to a mini-ITX board?

 

I noticed the other day that Scan are selling these too now - both ATX and mATX. Looks like ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte boards are available.