Sound through HDMI of video cards

[navi0]

The holidays is coming fast and Im trying to build up a newer desktop as I found myself back into doing some gaming particularly flight simulation.

My entertainment system is a Sony AV receiver which has 3 HDMI inputs and an HDMI TV output that goes to a Samsung 46 LCD HD TV. I just got a 24ft HDMI cable from ebay.

I'd like to use from the desktop to AV and use the TV as the the other screen of flight sim.

My question is more on the sound system and the HDMI of the video card. If I'll get a PCI-E sound card that supports 5.1 and a new video card that has HDMI, how would the sound from the sound card travel through the HDMI on the video card?

Is there a way to do that? or am I stuck in adding an audio cable from desktop to the AV? I wonder if my AV can pass through the sound while it is set to HDMI3 (ill figure that out when i go home)

are there any specs that I should look for in both the video card and the sound card?

Any tips for the newbie? thanks!

 

[Chainzsaw]

I know most of the AMD video cards with HDMI already have I think 7.1 sound cards built right in - so if you have video output from your desktop it will also carry over the sound as well. Although I don't know how good or bad these sound cards are.

So you shouldn't need an extra cable. Once connected in taskbar - there should be sound icon, and make sure you select the output as the HDMI (it might say something like High definition sound, or digital sound).

Another way you could do it is get a sound card that supports SPDIF output, if your AV supports it. But I find that SPDIF connections seem to have bandwidth issues (especially with 5.1), resulting in poor sound with lots of sound effects.