Need advice on new soundcard.

Hi everyone.

Last summer I built my current high end rig. It's pretty high in specs, and I tried to use the absolute best components I could afford at the time. One of the components was a Creative Labs PCI Soundblaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro Gamer sound card. I loved the card but a week or so ago, we had a major lightning storm and lost power. Despite the high end surge strip I had the machine hooked up to, when we got power back, I started having odd problems. I went through the normal diagnostic procedures and couldn't find the problem. The main issue was that the machine would periodically lock up. A hard boot would be necessary to get it going again. Originally I thought it might be Firefox, but I ruled that out quickly. Then I noticed that it almost always happened if I was running something that made heavy use of the sound card. Windows Media Player. VLC Media Player, Winamp, Divx etc... Sound heavy games really freaked it out.

Well I decided to do an experiment and so I removed the X-Fi card and set the system up to use the cheesy built in ATI sound chip on my MSI motherboard (790FX-GD70). The problem instantly went away.. So I was out a very expensive sound card and still am. Of course since I got it from eBay, Creative is completely disinterested in honoring the warranty (I hate dealing with those people).

Now I find myself in a bad situation. I am disabled and we are on a severely restricted budget, so another X-Fi Fatal1ty card is out of the question. And I am not really impressed with Creative the last few years. Their support is not very good anymore, and they charge way too much for their cards.

I have kind of been out of the loop on keeping up with new hardware for the last few years. Now I need some help.

I have no experience with any of the new sound cards out there. And I am kind of afraid to go with some of the odd brands I see now.

What I need is a relatively simple 7.1 card. I can use PCI or PCIE1x. I prefer it to have EAX 5.0 support and good reproduction. I need it DX11 compatible and as low priced as possible. I am hoping someone here can make some suggestions or let me know what their experience has been with a specific card. I am kind of rushed because my onboard audio is starting to act kind of flaky and I really want to disable it again before it damages something else in the system. As it is, I might have to replace the MB...

I appreciate any and all help and suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

Rich