Hey guys,I've just upgraded my video card to an ATI Radeon 4850 and my CPU to an AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 3.0GHz, now I am trying to figure out what sound card to get. I currently have a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 7.1 SE. My main concern is how much a sound card affects performance in FS9? There are two cards that I have been looking at: Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Xtremegamer FATAL1TY Professional Series Sound Card 7.1 PCI, and the Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Gamer 24BIT Sound Card 7.1 PCI. The first one is approx $150.00, and the other is approx $100.00. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.Scott.

I have bought every new Creative card as they were released.Its part of the upgrade sickness.In the flight sims I never noticed any difference and in fact, a few were worse since the sim didnt get along with the new driver.Just recently, my X-FI gamer died. I suspect a power surge,lightning, gremlin, who knows but it died.I dug through my box of cards and installed a older creative sound blaster Audigy 2zs I beleive.I can HEAR zero difference or see no performance gain or loss.If you google these new creative cards you will get a feeling that most gamers think they are nothing more than a marketing ploy as they really do very little if nothing to the quality or performance in gaming.IMO keep what you have til it dies and spend that money on some good payware addons.

I concur- when my P35 board died I RMA'd it and bought an X48 Asus that came with onboard sound- pulled out the Fatal1ty cand and left the stock one in- NO, zero, nada, zip- heard difference or performance in FS9 or FSX.Best-Carl F. Avari-Cooper BAW0225http://online.vatsimindicators.net/980091/523.png| XP Pro SP3 with FS-GS System Unification | 2 x APC UPS | Coolermaster Stacker 830 SE | Asus P5E-Deluxe (X48) | e8500 | Tuniq Tower 120 | EVGA 8800GT 512MB | Sony 40" Bravia XBR | 2 x 1 GB Corsair XMS2 | 500GB Seagate Barracuda 32MB SATA2 | Corsair HX620W PS | CH Products Yoke-Pedals-Throttle Quadrant | Aerosoft 747MCP-EFIS-EICAS |

Thanks guys,You've made my decision that much easier. I'll stick with what I've got.Scott