Need a decent soundcard for my Z5300E's

I just got my 5.1 Z5300E's and im verry verry happy with thme. extreamly loud and clear for the most part.

But my onboard sound prevents me from getting the most out of them. I was looking to buy an X-fi Extreme music soundcard but apparently it cannot decode 5.1 surround sound 8O which is surpirizing cosidering most onboards can decode 5.1 even 7.1 these days.

the new line of preformance soundcards by creative has a card that dosent? anyways im not entierly sure if thats even tru i dont want to spend anymore then 100$ (canadian) on a soundcard.

any suggestions on the best price : preformance ratio? (DVD,Music Mostly gaming tho.)
Cheers!

So your saying im not going to get the full out X-Fi quality.

""However, the format is not considered a true 6.1 or 7.1 channel codec because it lacks the capability to support a discrete 6th channel like the competing DTS-ES codec.""

In no way will the X-Fi be a limiting factor in the quality of your sound... not with those speakers. Nice speaker setup, but the X-Fi (in my opinion) is an equally nice card.

If you don't think the X-Fi is good enough for you, what is?

I paid $89 for my X-Fi *snort*

But that $20 rebate is long gone... $110 appears to be the going price for one now.

Specifically, what in the above post was wrong?

#&!@

Dolby Digital is like a ZIP file for movie audio. Onboard or X-Fi can decode--unZIP--these files and play them.

Gaming audio is usually analog only, it's not ZIPed up in single digital stream, it's already got all 8-channels opened up.

**I don't know where you heard the X-Fi can't decode 5.1-7.1.** It can't encode it (ZIP it up). But for you that functionality is useless, since you aren't sending the signal to another decoder like a receiver. The X-Fi decodes it and sends it directly to your speakers. Simple as that.