I was wondering if this new sound card was good or not. I really want the get it but it's PCIe 1x. My mobo MSI k9a2 has one PCIe 1x slot but it is in the slot next to the 1st PCIe 16x slot so my HD 3870 blocks it. Would I be able to put the sound card into.. say the 4th PCIe 16x slot and change it to 1x speed? Thanks any help would be great. I cant stand the onboard sound.

Geckoar

You should look into the Asus Xonarsound cards. They are able to decode EAX5.0 and are, in my opinion, a much beater card.

I cannot comment on the soundcard, but you should be able to put it in any PCIe slot regardless of the width.

Whoops! Missed that part.
Yeah, you can use a PCIe 1x, 4x, 8x or 16x card in a PCIe 16x slot.
The longer the PCB the more pathways are connected.
Goes something like this....

Still think the onboard mobo soundcard is good if u have a good mobo

Thanks for the info but I think that I will get the creative card. I have had creative for the longest time. And I know that their cards didnt like vista. But I have their mp3 player and it is great and the last card I had was the USB audigly 2 NX A great card but would not work 100% with vista. So running a sound card in the 4th PCIe 16x slot would work?

One more thing. The onboard sound is ok but I hate not being able to EQ my sound and my music and movies and games all sound dull. I have Bose PC 2.1 speakers and they sound great but the onboard brings them down alot.

If you are running vista, creative cards are not a good idea. I am not sure if they fixed their drivers yet, but it doesn't seem they did just look on their forums for the number of problems they have.
http://forums.creative.com/creativ [...] ter&page=1

Buying Creative and using Vista is a big mistake. Creative has purposely crippled their cards on Vista through poor drivers in hopes you'll by the X-Fi 2 card when it arrives. Go Asus or if you must have an X-Fi check out the Auzentech X-Fi's as Ive heard nothing but good things about them. My X-Fi Xtreme Gamer sounds like **** in vista and every time I try to upgrade or remove the drivers I get a BSOD, every time! Safe to say it will be my last Creative product period.

I have also heard they are disabling features in Vista by forcing firmware upgrades when you update the drivers with their new versions. I don't know how much truth is in that but wouldn't put it past them after all the BS with the Audigy's. After they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar they immediately released new drivers to appease the irate customers on the forums. This is after not releasing drivers for certain products since the introduction of Vista. What does that say about them as a company?

That's what I'm doing.

More than you would expect.

Product activation required even if updating a driver.