9800 GX2 Official!

[crenn]

Can you be certain? I don't recall the Radeons having optical out. We'll have to wait and see, but it's going to be an interesting development.

[The boy 4rm oz]

Sorry I wasn't very clear. Doesn't HDMI contain Video and Audio signals? Don't the Radeons process both but only have a HDMI output? The optical out on the 9800 GX2 (I presume) will allow you to connect the GPU to your X-FI sound card to share the load and possibly get better performance, which would be cool but may still be a bit tedious in the long run (kinda like how PhysX cards turned out). You may even be able to connect it to your home theater system for better integration and over all HTPC flexibility.

[crenn]

HDMI contains both signals. The Radeons don't process sound, the onboard sound still does that. I wouldn't think a GPU and a X-Fi would do any load balancing, it's still dependant on the X-Fi to do the sound, but the HDMI output may just 'integrate' the sound and video the GPU outputs.

[The boy 4rm oz]

I'm not an expert but by going from what you are saying it sounds like that's how it will probably turn out. Still it's good to see that they actually thought to integrate HDMI into the card.

[crenn]

I had an interesting thought this morning. It has 3 video connectors. 2x DVI and 1x HDMI, does this mean it will be able to support 3 monitors?

[The boy 4rm oz]

Who knows, I would say that you would only be able to access either HDMI or DVI.

[Indybird]

Actually I think it does support 3 monitors because the HDMI probably replaces the "Video Out" (Component, Composite, S-Video) connections that graphics cards have had for a while now.

-Indybird