Ideally with connection at the rear of the PC, plugged straight into PC surround sound system???
the best sound card for games would have to be the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro, but costing around £250 its a little pricey…
I think you can get very high quality sound for only a little bit of money. Most soundcards are highly overrated. This has been proven with both the Audigy 1 and the Audigy 2 (I can tell you from personal experience -look at my computer-) .
My advice for you is to go with one of the following:
24-bit 7.1 surround (Turtle Beach)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829118104
24-bit 7.1 surround (Creative Labs)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829102177
I would personally go with the second one only because I have used it in the past and worked out great for me. In fact, it is still in the computer and still works great.
yeah plus creative are the one of the industry leaders in soundcards…they’re just amazing
emu10k1 is a good chipset on that 2nd sound card fred posted
i too had a Live! but it’s demise was most likely my own fault
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music
^^^^^^^ thats a good one, and its only £100 @ overclockers.co.uk