I have been using a Creative X-Fi Extreme Music since it first came out about six years ago. The X-fi was great and the Audigy 2 ZS it replaced was equally good. Both these cards could smoke the AC97 audio on the motherboard. In 2008 I purchased a Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L mainboard to go with my new Core 2 and this included the Realtek ALC888 chip which I never even bothered to use given my historical affinity towards onboard audio. After upgrading to Vista and subsequently Win 7 I found that the audio quality from my X-fi was sluggish and poor compared to when I had Windows XP. Not only that the drivers broke often and required a re-install. Given that my X-fi Extreme Music was almost 6 years old, I suspected an aging card and replaced it with a X-fi Fatality PCI-E card. I was unpleasantly surprised that even with the latest drivers as of early 2010 the new creative card exhibited the same problems as the old one. Frustrated, I pulled out the X-fi and after years of neglect I activated the ALC 888 on the motherboard. Man, was I in audio nirvana. The 888 was far more responsive with clean, crisp and detailed audio. The drivers are solid in Win 7 unlike the Creative drivers which required a re-install with every rigorous gaming session. It's nice to see that onboard has come so far. Now you can take that $150 you spend for a sound card and use it to get a better mainboard. For general use the onboard ALC888 HD audio should be more than adequate unless you are absolutely anal about your sound. Remember there are lots of great sound cards out there other than Creative. Creative has had two years to adapt to the new Vista/Win7 environment but have failed miserably. I think they are seeing the end of the tunnel for their sound cards and just don't want to put any more dough into R&D knowing the eventuality. Cheers