Ok, I have horrible luck with integrated sound, and I want to have a sound card. Of course, I hear the horror stories about Creative's sound cards. I heard about Daniel_K and his custom drivers for Audigy cards. I also know that those cards are not sold anymore.

So, I have a couple tough decisions to make:

1) I want to avoid Creative, but all the other cards seems too pricey. The price range I'm looking at is $50-$100. I can deal with lower, but I know you get what you pay for!

2) I don't want something that is software emulated, which is another reason I want to avoid Creative, with their deceptive naming scheme. Of course, I'm not even sure if that's possible anymore, since I recently switched to Vista (or possibly 7 soon).

3) I have both PCI and PCI-e x1, but I've heard bad things about PCI-e sound cards... is any of that true?

Integrated isn't an option. I always have compatibility issues, plus it's kinda creepy actually. There static coming through my speakers from my sound card, and it sounds like somebody running down a rainy street. A little unsettling at times. Hahahaha...

Any help is very appreciated!

(Oh, and I did a forum search already, and while there are some great posts out there, they didn't really help)

I know Auzentech make good cards although I would go for this M-Audio card (even if it costs $29 over your budget)...

ha, i second that M-Audio card...i've had one for the past couple years, flawless. it's also really good for integrating into a home theater (having RCA outputs). I use it for general playback as well as recordings, flawless card all the way up to it's highest settings.

The Auzentech card though, it's basically a different brand of the same creative models.

This may sound a bit dumb but.... how would that sound card be useful without a 3.5mm jack?

it rhymes with Home Theater....

my bad, i gave it away.

I've never seen a Home Theater system that relies on 3.5mm inputs. you can get adapters to convert that into 3.5mm male or female (i have adapters for both).

I guess I technically never said I would be hooking standard PC speakers to it. I just thought that would be assumed... anyhow, that sound card wouldn't work, unfortunately. Not only it is expensive in it's base form, but I would need an adapter as bonestonne said, further distancing the setup from my original budget.

I suppose sound cards really are a dead end. I just want something cheap, that won't burden my processor, and is stable with no static and crackling...

then get an X-Fi or some other basic 5.1 model...

as much as you don't want it, you can probably get some PCI-e x1 based card for $70 range...just check around on newegg.

your biggest limit is saying you don't want creative, when they almost dominate the sound card world.