Onboard 7.1 audio

[Sparky Joe]

My new motherboard(P5WD2 prem) has onboard 7.1 audio, with a 'RealTek HD audio' controller. I'm looking into getting new speakers, I want a 5.1 setup because I don't have space for the extra 2 speakers.

All the setups I've looked at(interested in) are amplified of course and the amplifier is in the sub woofer which is where all the other speakers plug in. Although none of them say how they connect to the computer(digital/analog)

My question is if all the surround sound setups connect like this(through the sub) why would they go to the trouble of putting so many jacks on the back of my motherboard?

As you can probably tell, this is the first time I've looked into surround sound for my PC, so any information on the subject would be helpful.

Thanks -Joe

 

[riekmaharg2]

Each jack in your computer is resoncible for different speakers. One for sub on center speaker, one for front speakers, and one for rear speakers. Thsi makes it surround sound. How as your sound card is build'in you will probaly need to enable the surround. This will be located in the software you got with your motherboard. There will be a program that controlls all things sound wise. You will have options to uses the jacks as none surround with microphone or surround using all jack without microphone.

 

[Sparky Joe]

Yes I know all this, perhaps I'm stating my question wrong.

From all the surround sound speakers setups I've been looking at all the speakers(left, right, front, rear, center) connect to the sub(which is where the amplifier is). My question then is; if my motherboard/sound card cannot amplify the signal, why would it have all the connections? I mean can you imagine using your speakers with a 0.5 watt output(or whatever it happens to be), or are there systems out there where each individual speaker (or pair of speakers) is amplified by itself? Seems like that would use up a lot of receptacles.

 

[riekmaharg2]

Why would you need an amplifier in each speaker. The signals from your computer get amplified by the amplifier in the sub and then get sent to the speakers which are plugged into the sub.