NVIDIA nForce2 Preview

Standardizing with SoundStorm

Dolby Digital encoding support was one of the most talked about features of the original nForce, but interestingly enough there were some motherboard manufacturers that didn’t even take advantage of the capability of the original MCP. Although every motherboard featured analog outputs not all of them shipped with digital outputs for connecting to an external Dolby Digital decoder.

We were first introduced to the nForce’s DD encoding support using NVIDIA’s reference ACR card that enabled 6-channel analog outputs as well as SPDIF audio outputs using optical connectors. NVIDIA took their reference add-in card and branded it as SoundStorm, which is what you see in the picture below.

SoundStorm is just another name for NVIDIA’s ACR card that provides all of the inputs and outputs necessary to take advantage of the APU. It is not clear whether or not motherboard manufacturers will be shipping with the rather expensive SoundStorm card, although we’d expect them to continue to use their more cost effective solutions instead.