Soundcard....

[Nagasama]

I am not an audiophile so I doubt I could go into any detail of sound quality I am more interested in it being extremely loud and not crackling up atm lol. Many people say they moved from X-fi (around the same price) to the Asus and its the best their pc has ever sounded and much more preferable due to the lack of vista support by creative.

if you are not an audiophile....you dont really need to buy the auzentech or the asus. i dont know how much it is where you live, but its 175 dollars here, the asus 200. ouch. those are audiophile cards. any of the creative/asus cards will "go loud"...the two you linked are two of the most expensive cards made for the mainstream.