Okay, so I consider myself rather acute in hearing differences in audio. I use the phrase audiophile loosely, but when it comes to hardcore decisions and following stuff, no, definitely not there. As long as I'm 80-90% of the way there, I'm cool. I do appreciate clear sound though, but minute differences (or placebo differences, heh) I don't fret over.

However, my Audigy 2 ZS recently died (or my PCI bus died, not sure which to be honest) and I need to get a new sound card.

First and foremost, this is for a Windows 7 box. It's used mostly for:

Gaming
Music
Movies

Gaming/Music are pretty much equal. Movies a close second/third.

Now, my first thought was to just keep Creative and go X-Fi. Which then lead me to the X-Fi Titanium (which is $80 shipped right now from Newegg). Also, for $100 @ Best Buy, I can get the X-Fi Fatal1ty. Now, I hate Fatal1ty's stuff, especially at retail, but the Fatal1ty one has X-RAM (64M for gaming, but requires OpenAL or something to use it. It also has EMI shielding, and while cool, I doubt that I need it.

Then, I read up on the Asus Xonar series since they're supposedly providing better analog output. Lots of pricing there. And some other companies as I've read here and XS. It's a lot to soak up.

My setup is a set of Z-5300e's in a 2.1 setup since

1. I have no space for 5.1, and
2. The amp is painfully underpowered.

The sound in 2.1 is very clear and the bass sounds good (as good as I can have it in an apartment complex, anyway). But now that I need a new card, preferably PCI-E, I need some help.

Suggestions? Ideally, I want something that's 5.1/7.1 compatible, but 2.1 is all I really need right now. I doubt you can even buy 2.1? My main concern is a great analog DAC, preferably over PCI-E. I dunno much about the signal processors being used now, so I leave it in this forums hands to hopefully help me out.

Thanks for any info you can provide.
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