Internal S/PDIF connector on Gigabyte Z97 motherboard

Question

I've ordered a Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3 motherboard as part of a new system I'm building, here: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4955

Here's the back panel: http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/product/2/4955/10138_big.png

The only audio outputs are individual speaker outputs, i.e. for a 5.1 arranegement, there's three 3.5mm jacks for Front pair, Back pair and Centre/Subwoofer. On the last two systems I've built they've both had S/PDIF connectors (either optical or coax), and that's all that's on my surround sound receiver too. The lack of a S/PDIF connector seems pretty common now, none of the motherboards I considered buying have one. So to get 5.1 output it looks like I'd have to buy a new receiver.

The manual talks about an internal 2-pin S/PDIF connector, but it reads like it isn't intended to be piped out externally. Here's what the manual says about it:

SPDIF_O (S/PDIF Out Header)

This header supports digital S/PDIF Out and connects a S/PDIF digital audio cable (provided by expansion cards) for digital audio output from your motherboard to certain expansion cards like graphics cards and sound cards. For example, some graphics cards may require you to use a S/PDIF digital audio cable for digital audio output from your motherboard to your graphics card if you wish to connect an HDMI display to the graphics card and have digital audio output from the HDMI display at the same time.

For information about connecting the S/PDIF digital audio cable, carefully read the manual for your expansion card.

But if all the connector is doing is providing an S/PDIF feed, is there any reason I can't get an S/PDIF backplate, plug it onto that jumper on the motherboard, and run a coax cable from it to my receiver? I can't see why it wouldn't work but the manual doesn't describe the jumper being used in that way which is strange.

FYI will have a PCI Express/16 separate graphics card plugged into this, and my monitor is a Dual Link DVI connection, not HDMI, so I can't get sound out that way.

Solution

Now I've had the motherboard arrive I can answer this myself - yes it does work :) Did exactly as I hoped above, just plugged a jumper onto the S/PDIF connector on the board, ran it outside the case and to my surround sound system and Windows 7 was working properly with 5.1 sound immediately after install :)