When AMD announced the 785G chipset last nigh it looked like an excellent alternative for HTPC systems and your regular office PC. The integrated graphics circuits support most video playback features and with HDMI 1.3 output most claimed that AMD had solved the problems of not sending surround sound in LPCM format over the HDMI interface. This function is required to play the High Definition Blu-ray movies for the full experience, and works with most chipsets from Intel and NVIDIA, but AMD’s chipsets are lacking here.
It has been confirmed that AMD still lacks multi-channel support for LPCM over the HDMI interface, which is no catastrophe for most users, but still a smudge on an otherwise very attractive multimedia chipset.
Those who were thinking of feeding High Definition audio formats from Blu-ray movies to an HDMI amplifier might want to look for something else than AMD 785G. Exactly why AMD still hasn’t solved this with its chipset, the 780G/790GX chipsets are also limited to 2-channel LPCM audio signals, since the Radeon HD 4000 series supports this is unknown and not the least surprising.
ECS A785GM-M AMD 785G motherboard
