im maknig a custom rig and i have narowed the sound card down to 4 cards:

Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Hercules GameTheatre XP -ive been leaning away from this becouse of lack of winXP drivers.
M-Audio Audiophile 24/96
Philips Acoustic Edge

its to go with an Asus A7M266 or A7V266 motherboard.
price itsnt so much an issue, i would like an optical out (for a MiniDisc recorder) and a 1/4" out plug, but not essential

its for home use, Mp3, DVD movies, net, some games, and it has to be able to play sounds from different progs(winamp&IE)


any suggestions?

Philips A.E.

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My vote would be for the Santa Cruz.

The Hercules GTXP is nice, but it has big time driver problems and support from Hercules has been nearly non-existent.

TL

From someone who has a Philips Acoustic Edge in an A7M266, I highly recommend this board. I originally had a SBLive! Platinum 5.1 in this system and ran into DMA issues and hard drive corruption. When I put in the Acoustic Edge all of my problems went away. The card sounds great and runs without a hitch. That's my vote anyway.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. - Mark Twain

If you must have it now I will suggest the Philips Acoustic Edge. If you can wait I will wait for rewiews on Creative Labs' audigy that suppose to come out next month.

Philips A E... agree with your leaning away from the xp...

if in doubt blame microsoft...