I am planning on doing an upgrade this spring to my soundcrad and speakers. Currently i use onboard sound with my Asus A8N-E mobo, and have it hooked up to my mini system, but seeing as i am doing more gaming and more DVD watching on my pc i have thought it would be a good idea to invest in some quality audio gear.
My thoughts up to this point were to go with the Creative X-FI Fatality soundcard, seeing as it has the capabilities to customize audio prefrences for movies and gaming experiances. A link to review folows:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/sound/246/
For speakers i have heard many good things about the Logitech series of 5.1 surround speakers. THe model i have taken notice to is the Z5500 series. I like this choice not only b/c of wattage and power, but the coax/optical input connections which should help produce the highest quality sound. A link to review follows:
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/z5500/
Does anyone have any suggestions or warning is should heed before investing in this audio upgrade? It will be a rather costly upgrade so i would like to get it right the first time.
I have heard of people having troubles with the Creative X-FI fatality series of soundcards and wanted to know if there was some info out in the forums about peoples experiances with this card.

Don't know if you really need the Fatality version of the Xi-Fi for what you'll do with it....
For gaming & DVD watching, the cheapest one will do as well, imho...

And yes... I'm a big fan of coax/optical connections as well...

I just have an Creative Audigy 2 (wich supports up to EAX 4) and I noticed a huge boost in audio
quality (clarity, noise levels) going from a cheap analogue 5.1 set to a quality digital 2.1 set....

If other members disagree, don't hesitate to comment!

TDR

The X-Fi Platinum (which I have) will do the same thing as the Fatal1ty, for $100 less. The more expensive mobel just has onboard memory, which no games take advantage of right now anyways.