StarTech.com PCISOUND5CH 5.1 Channels 24-bit 48KHz PCI Interface Sound Card

Pros: It's got a very small footprint, leaving (one of) my graphics card's cooler intake 80% unobstructed. My old sound card blocked the poor video card's intake fully, and the thing would overheat. It works fine, and has no CPU induced radio frequency interference. It's an improvement over simple mobo audio output. I gave this five stars, not because I think that it's the best card you could possibly get, but the dollar to quality ratio is substantially high(!), and it does the job. Please see "other thoughts".

Cons: Slight decrease in decibels from my previous SB Audigy ZS, which is more noticable with headphones than speakers.

Overall Review: Keep your motherboard audio driver! For this card, you can auto-load a driver with the Windows device manager easily, but it's an extension to your mobo driver, not a replacement. I testify that it works with this gear: XP x64 OS; AMD Athlon x64 X2; ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe mobo, with nForce 4 AMD chipset drivers. My mobo uses the Realtek AC'97 Audio driver, supplimented with the "Matrox Audio" driver that Windows installed for this StarTech sound card. I've heard that a driver from any corp that's written for the C-Media CMI8738 or CMI8768 chip will work with this card.

Pros: It lets your video card breathe without forcing you to buy some ridiculously overpriced PCI-Express sound card. MIDI support.. thank goodness!

Cons: None. Totally knew what I was buying and am very satisfied.

Overall Review: I bought this to replace a Turtle Beach Riviera, which had performed well for years.. but the left channel eventually died and I didn't want to pay to have it repaired (not sure, but I doubt it's under warranty any longer) If you're not an audiophile weirdo, don't use optical output and have a suffocating graphics card, this is probably your best bet. (for the money) I'm a long-time advocate of the notion that sound cards haven't changed a lot, so try to avoid getting ripped off on some marketing tactic. (ie, buy what you NEED not what they're telling you to WANT)

Pros: Cheap. Good specs. Works. Enough ports to connect 5.1 speakers and a microphone.

Cons: (With the supplied drivers) There is audible popping when audio applications open and close audio channels. This will happen every time windows makes system sounds.

Overall Review: Newer drivers can be obtained through Windows update or from the chipset manufacturer C-Media (but not from the card manufacturer StarTech, their drivers are old). I used the C-media drivers and all popping sounds were eliminated.

Pros: After some work with the drivers, sounds nice.

Cons: First try on drivers I used the CD to install and my system crashed on startup. I try the drivers on their website and my computer crashes when I plug headphones into it. After a third try on the drivers on the CD, it now works but on startup I get asked to install the drivers again.

Overall Review: A bit of a headache. Could just be me.

Pros: The sound quality is much better than an integrated sound card. It was relatively easy to install (assuming you've done this kind of thing before or read instructions). And of course, it was cheap; which makes the cost to performance ratio very good. If you were using an integrated card before this, you may notice a very slight performance boost to non-sound related functions (because a little of the strain is taken off of your motherboard). Here's the url for the newest driver in case anyone needs it: http://www.startech.com/item-download/PCISOUND5CH-51-Channel-PCI-Sound-Card.aspx

Cons: I can't comment on the specific quality of the sound because I'm not a sound aficionado. But then again if I was, I probably would be willing to spend more than $15 on a sound card.

Pros: Cheap, and hey, it worked.

Cons: Nothing

Pros: Plug it in, install drivers, connect speakers. Sounds as good or better than on-board audio. It has 5.1 surround and a game port. Not bad for something in this price range

Cons: Its nothing special, does not compare to SoundBlaster or any other name brand cards.

Overall Review: This was used for a client that bought a Vista PC and switched to XP. Due to the lack of drivers for the sound I ordered this to replace the on-board audio.

Pros: It does what its suppose to do. Makes sonar cakewalk faster, and not sure if it helps with games but good buy for the price.

Cons: None