Which soundcard?

[Mithrandir]

Well I put together my secondary rig a couple of nights ago and managed to install an OS and play around with it yesterday. However, I noticed the onboard sound is pretty shoddy compared with my 'sig' rig with Audigy. Im not sure if it's driver problems or just the case with mobo onboard sound in general. The motherboard isn't high end stuff, just one of those I got for £25 on eveshame bay: an MSI Neo4-F (platinum according to the splash screen on bootup). Anyhow, I have been reading about X-fi and how great they are.
I have noticed there are different versions and not sure how they differ. Also will I benefit greatly or will I be better off spending a tenner on a audigy or other brand?

My uses are: movies, games and Internet
My budget: as little as possible (around a tenner perhaps, but if need be they X-fi price )

Oh the rig is below titled 'Super budget rig'

thanks

[notsobig]

I don't really think those card you can grab for a tenner can outperform onboard sound. I think it sounds even worse or maybe sounds equal at best? Try looking for secondhand audigy2/4 I think that's the best budget option out there. Or maybe even look for something older like sblive! and go with kxdriver option as the driver can do some miracles.(I use this combo on my second rig and I actually prefer it over audigy2 zs/creative original driver combo) Or strech your budget a bit and get Xtreme Music or gamer for 50quid or go absolute insane and grab prelude for 120quid

[daza]

I'd actually avoid the x-fi series like the plague as Ive got an x-fi xtreme music card and in BF2142 it wont work at all I have to set it to software mode in the options, that and the constant freezes and the odd bsod from the drivers/software.

However as mentioned the X-fi prelude from auzentech is a good card (different drivers from auzentech), and the HDA card is also quite good.

And theres also the asus sonar doing the rounds which has received a few good reviews.

Ok so none of them are around a tenner but there all quite good.

[Mithrandir]

Thanks guys. I did have a look on ebay and there seems to be some Audigy cards around for under a tenner. Might go for one of them, but I'll experiemnt with drivers first as I might not have installed the correct ones or optimised ones.