Good upgrade....

I have been using the onboard sound on an ASUS K8V-X mother board...I bought a refurbished card thru Creative (Ebay).

Installation of the card and gameport went OK...software installation went well.

Results:

I mostly play UT2004 offline...liking the full VR type games. The onboard sound was pretty good...I will have to say...but I'm seeing major improvements with this new sound card.

I also use Creative 5.1 T5400 speakers.

* No I am not affiliated with Creative...just went with the speakers due to reviews and the price...same with the card. Reviews were on gaming sites.

Sound - much clearer and more detailed...and once the sound levels were dialed in...I'd say around a 20-30% improvement...really makes the game.

Game performance - with some processing load taken from the main processor...the games performance has increased by at least the same amount...20-30%.

I was able to increase resolution...and the games AI now has more resources...improving gameplay by quite a bit.

Did have an episode of a higher pitched noise in one rear speaker...but after getting the sound levels adjusted...I haven't heard it since.

Since this card is refurbished...I only have 30 days to see if it works as expected...so far...so good.