Problem: Most sound cards today have limited driver support. They don't run well on the drivers available, and they don't have drivers when new operating systems are released.

Solution: Put your money in a good digital decoder and pass straight digital audio via the onboard motherboard SPDIF.

Read on.

So, to preface I am an audiophile. I love crisp highs, deep lows, and a mid range that hits tight. Why on earth would I be saying to you, forget the sound card?
Over the years I have hopped from Turtle Beach to Creative Labs buying many different models as the technology has developed. Back in the day Creative labs had a great sound card called the Sound Blaster AWE/32. This was one of the first solid sound cards that was expandable, programmable, and delivered a great signal to noise ratio, even when you ran this on a computer with a low quality power supply. A number of other companies like Turtle Beach also produced some great sound cards around this time. We are talking about the mid and late 90’s. Well, times have changed.
Let’s fast forward to the present. Creative Labs is now the dominant player in the sound card market. I have gone through at least 3 sound cards made by them. The Audigy, Audigy 2, and X-Fi series. My general conclusion is that they have completely dropped the ball when it comes to writing solid, efficient drivers, and it seems to be getting worse as time goes on. From crackling and popping noises to severely affecting the overall computer performance I was left frustrated with such a poor experience. It was very easy to try and blame Linux, XP, Vista, or Windows 7 but I know just enough of how information is bussed around the motherboard, and the respective bottle necks. Also I have a good friend at Microsoft to help troubleshoot the really weird. What really had me stumped was when I played a very popular game, World of Warcraft, on my laptop with a generic AC’97 driver and was getting twice the frame rate as my desktop computer. The irony here is that my laptop is running the RTM of Windows 7. I went back and forth (on my desktop) updating drivers, updating firmware, downloading beta drivers, testing all combinations and still one fact remained. My desktop, which has twice the performance of my laptop, should be much faster. But instead my laptop was flying along compared to my desktop.
Then I had a “duh” moment. You know the kind. You’re asking your significant other where your car keys are, spouting accusations of moving them, when you point with your car keys in hand where you had just left your car keys. Yup, on par with that.
I really don’t need a “sound card”! Wait a sec. . .I quickly got under my desk and looked at the back of the computer. There it was, a glistening shiny single RCA style jack. This single output connector was my savior. OK, strong words, but at the time I was completely frustrated with, what normally is, a rather productive set of troubleshooting steps to solve most any computer related problem. Five minutes later I had my $150 sound card (now about $90) yanked out of my computer and the sweet sound of crisp, clear, unadulterated sound was capably doing the job of satisfying my discerning ears. My favorite games, music, and even that annoying little ding of a new email sounded . . . .better.
The Solution: That single jack is a digital audio output connector. This is not an analog connection, will explain later. I was able to connect this directly into my 5.1 “receiver” and select the source. Violet, sound! Well, OK, I had to turn on the sound in the motherboard BIOS, and make sure the default audio source was correctly selected in Windows. This solution was possible for two reasons. The motherboard had a digital audio output (SPDIF) and I had a sound system capable of using this format. For my speakers I have the Logitech Z-5500 system. This system is great. I just wasn’t using it properly; referencing the “duh” comment. In the back of the control unit Logitech offers several different inputs. One is the analog input (which I was using before), and the other two are digital inputs; RCA and optical. One job a sound card usually does is to convert the digital bits of information into analog signals capable of being understood by any standard receiver. Well, with Creative’s infinite wisdom they also made this proprietary as they bundled the woofer and center channel on one stereo connection. Sorry, to be fair, this is not unique to Creative but they sure did pave the way. This is not standard and in my opinion should be kept away from. So, the digital to analog conversion (DAC), which is normally done on the sound card, is now left unchanged and the digital signal continues on up to the receiver. The receiver is a 5.1 Dolby Digital decoder so it is responsible for breaking up the audio to the correct 6 speakers as per request.
In conclusion, I now have a simple, straight forward solution, built on industry standards which is capable of delivering cleaner audio to my speakers than using a sound card. Cleaner? Absolutely. When you convert digital to analog in a sound card you introduce noise, on the analog portion, created by the computers power supply and also created by the other power consuming devices inside and/or around your computer. I could wrap that digital cable 10 times around a blender and no electrical noise would ever affect the clarity of that signal. Furthermore I am basically upgrade proof! I don’t have to rely on a complicated driver to run correctly and possibly slow down my computer. The only down fall is that I am not able to take advantage of the environmental audio extensions (EAX), however, what good are they if my speakers have cracking and hissing; enough to make my cat look at them? Also, if you buy a $100+ sound card and hook them up to a 2.1 speaker system or a speaker system that costs $100 or less you are basically wasting your money as you will not be matching the similar performance specifications capable by the two units.
If you want great sound, tired of faulty sound card software, and want an easy, positively flawless solution to getting good sound, (especially if you are upgrading to Windows 7 or using Linux) then come over where the professional cows eat their grass; on that other side of the fence.