[achtung]

I'm hoping you guys can give me some suggestions.

I'm looking for something no more expensive than 50-60 bucks, and I'd really like something other than creative, if such a thing exists.  I've got SigmaTel onboard audio now that sucks big time.

[Nuke]

well from what i know most onboard sound units theese days have at least some form of digital out, wether it be coax or fiber optic. you might just consider jacking it in to a standard reciever unit which supports digital-in, and get some good speakers. it has the added bonus of being able to jack other devices into it and to have a centralized sound system with multiple imputs.

im using an xfi extreme music and it sounds a great deal better than the onboard sound. though im sure if you look hard enough youd find a better non-creative card.

[CP5670]

If this is for gaming, Creative is pretty much your only choice. The other stuff isn't worth considering in this respect. The X-Fi Gamer is a nice card, but at $90 it's a bit above your price range (the X-Fi Audio is a rebadged Audigy and should be avoided).

For general audio, you have a lot more options, although I'm not familiar with exactly what is out there. M-Audio and Turtle Beach are supposed to make some good cards.

[IceFire]

If you can wait ASUS has a new set of dedicated sound cards coming out soon that should be a nice competitor with Creative.  I haven't seen any real pricing yet.  Apparently the X-Plosion sound cards are pretty good too...not the greatest gamer cards but a good card from the reviews.

[Flipside]

I know how you feel about Creative, since they bought E-Mu my card has been virtually support-less.

You can get some pretty good generic surround sound cards, I'm not sure about the US, but something like this in the UK...

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?TRU-12950

[achtung]

If you can wait ASUS has a new set of dedicated sound cards coming out soon that should be a nice competitor with Creative.  I haven't seen any real pricing yet.  Apparently the X-Plosion sound cards are pretty good too...not the greatest gamer cards but a good card from the reviews.

Any ideas as to how long the wait would be?

[Cyker]

The Philips Acoustic Edge and it's siblings are not bad and are very cheap.

My brother has a Terratec card which is also pretty good.

Audigy's are pretty good and cheap, but Creative are like old ATI - Good hardware but can't write drivers (Or any software) worth a damn.

Any card based on the old nVidia Soundstorm, or the new RealTek HD/Oxygen sound chip will be pretty cheap but pretty good too, 'tho without MIDI/wavetable support.

[IceFire]

If you can wait ASUS has a new set of dedicated sound cards coming out soon that should be a nice competitor with Creative.  I haven't seen any real pricing yet.  Apparently the X-Plosion sound cards are pretty good too...not the greatest gamer cards but a good card from the reviews.

Any ideas as to how long the wait would be?

Last I heard was something about September.  There's a simmering hype surrounding these cards...I'm hoping they will present a serious or at least competent challenge to Creative.  PCI and PCI-Express versions right off the bat.

[CP5670]

They won't be able to compete with Creative on the gaming front unless they support EAX though. Are they supposed to be licensing that in some way?

Creative are like old ATI - Good hardware but can't write drivers (Or any software) worth a damn.

Exactly. Their cards work great on the Windows version at the time of their launch, but you often run into all sorts of problems with the drivers for later OS/SPs. I've had this experience more than once now.

[achtung]

One reason I want to stay away from Creative is that I dual boot fedora 7.  From what I hear Linux and Creative don't get along too well.

[IceFire]

They won't be able to compete with Creative on the gaming front unless they support EAX though. Are they supposed to be licensing that in some way?

They will support EAX as much as the other cards support EAX (which I think is version 2.0).  To get the EAX 5.0 or whatever it is that they have right now I think Creative is asking more than anyone is willing to pay.  The upside is that only 5-6 games in the last several years actually support those higher versions.  So frankly EAX isn't a huge deal right now...seeing as most people now just have an onboard card the game developers have gone that direction instead.  I'm just using my nForce 2's nVidia Soundstorm and thats more than enough for anything right now although quality surely suffers a bit with all the noise from other motherboard components.

Here's a good article:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/pcs/news/2007/06/08/Computex-2007-ASUS-Xonar-D2-Arrives/p1

D2 is for PCI and D2X is for PCI-Express. I'm interested...I'm waiting to see what actually happens but when I buy a new PC I might just put one of these guys in.

[CP5670]

There are actually quite a few games at this point that use 4.0, including most of the major titles from the last two years. It makes a pretty big difference to positional sound quality and in some cases actually increases the framerates significantly (the BF series is one example of that).

In any case, if the games you're into don't support the newer EAX versions, then this won't really offer anything over the existing VIA/C-Media cards, at least as far as gaming is concerned.

[Scuddie]

Meh.  I prefer that games dont use EAX, as they not only run better, but they also sound better.  I would recommend a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (or whatever version they have now), or perhaps an M-Audio card.  They both work well with windows and linux, and are relatively cheap.

[achtung]

I'm not to worried about EAX, as long as I get decent surround sound for my 5.1 system I'm happy.

I think I may wait on those Asus cards unless something really nice comes up.

[jr2]

Is OpenAL an open-source replacement for EAX, or what?  Would it help the situation any?

[achtung]

Is OpenAL an open-source replacement for EAX, or what?  Would it help the situation any?

I keep hearing how OpenAL has helped Creative seal it's own fate.  Not really sure how.