Im using a SB X-Fi Titanium (the one that supports EAX natively) , and it sounds great.

Though I will say that the main reason I use it is because I found it for about £10 , I wouldn't buy a new sound card so quickly especially as I don't have a killer sound system.

I am using the onboard realtek on my motherboard. With decent speakers it sounds good to me

i am using echo miamidi, i plan to switch to m-audio audiophile192 which has 64bit drivers, and i encourage those who can afford one to buy lynx2.

None.

On-board audio here too and I love every moment of it 😵

Onboard is much better these days. I was using the Realtek 898 off my GA-Z87X-UD4H until 2 months ago, then popped my X-Fi XtremeGamer FPS in. Then sunday I received my used ($76) SB-Zx card. Its quite nice. haven't given it a workout yet other than the VGA 2014 on youtube.

If I had the money to dump on a DAC/AMP I would probably jump on that but the Zx has Headphone amp built in anyways.

I'm impatiently waiting on some ATH-AD500X from japan. These will be the most expensive headphones that I bought. Also need to update my 2.1 speakers I bought back in 1998-1999 but they sound great still.

Yea onboard has come a long way. Does the job fine but I still use a Creative card for gaming 😀

I'm using a Recon3D PCIe, and before that an X-Fi PCI (which I did not like much at all, especially once Windows 7 came about). The onboard audio on my motherboard (Intel DX48BT2) had unstable drivers in XP, and has been disabled in the BIOS for years as a result. I have no idea if the drivers would or wouldn't be an improvement in 7, but they caused a number of games to crash when the board was new, so that was a no-go. Sound quality and feature-wise it was absolutely fine, and I would have no problems using it if it weren't crashtastic. That isn't to say Recon3D is bad - honestly I like the little thing, it's easy to live with, and has been stable for howeverlong I've had it - very much a "set and forget" kind of device). My "next up" machine inherited the X-Fi because I could never find drivers for its integrated sound in XP, and while it's got them for Win7, I just didn't want to hassle with removing the card. 😊

RogueTrip2012: The new Sound Blaster cards have the same TI chipamp that the Recon3D, Asus, and a number of stand-alone headphone amplifiers use - it's *very* robust (on 14-15V supply it will do upwards of 1W/ch out into ~30R, and in one stand-alone incarnation (that has a ~2A PSU) the manufacturer stands behind its ability to drive a pair of 8R Tannoy bookshelves to "loud" levels; when installed in a PC (Creative, Asus, Auzen, etc) it usually runs on 9-12V though, so the output is more like 600-800mW, which is still enough to utterly shatter your ears in a matter of seconds)) and with something as easily driven as modern ATs you will have no problems aside from ergonomics (you have to plug in at the back of the case and it requires an adapter for 6.3mm). I had no complaints with it as a stand-alone in a few amplifiers/devices, or as implemented on the Recon3D, with a wide variety of headphones, including a few ATs. One advantage it has over many stand-alone amplifiers (especially under $500) is digital volume control = correct channel tracking. Most cheap headphone amps have pretty atrocious volume controls.

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The primary PC has an X-Fi Titanium driving AudioEngine A2 speakers and S8 subwoofer. The motherboard is an ASUS P9X79 Pro with onboard Realtek ALC898. I don't know if the X-Fi sounds better than onboard because I never tried onboard; the X-Fi was a carryover from a previous build.

The gaming system PC has a Sound Blaster Z driving a Sennheiser PC350 headset. The motherboard is a ASUS P8Z77-V with onboard Realtek ALC892. I did use the onboard sound on it and the Z was a significant upgrade, I'm guessing because of the headphone amp/output.

I have an Audigy SB0090 in my modern box but personally I think it almost sounds weaker than the on board realtek audio if you can believe that. 😒

You would think it would sound as impressive as the Live! but it sounds weak by comparison imho.

BTW has anyone gotten the Live! card working properly in Windows 7?

Since around the arrival of Socket 775 the onboard audio has been remarkably great given that you get a decent board. Getting a new soundcard for me is a waste of money and space.

Sound blaster Z, in my main machine.
The onboard realtek too, but only for the extra line-in.
The onboard picks up GPU generated noise real easy when its under-load, the Z doesn't. Yet the Z is sitting right next to the GPU, but the realtek is pretty far away from the gpu near the edge of the board. So you think it would not.
Making the realtek completely useless for gaming.

The onboard Realtek audio does me good for just about everything - games, music, it all sounds really nice, even through a headset.

Onboard seemed to work great in Windows 7 at first, then I started getting glitches and crackles so ever since then I've used a Xonar DG. Despite changes of motherboard.

My other modernish PC uses an Audigy 2 ZS, because after fiddling with the iTunes graphic equaliser I decided every setting was awful with the onboard sound. Not convinced the Audigy is massively better so maybe it's my speakers, but it's in there now.

I use X-Fi Extreme Music,works fine in windows 7.

Auzentech X-fi Forte 7.1 for me atm, never used the onboard audio since many many years...

I actually prefer the sound of the ALC898 "SupremeFX" built into my Asus mobo over my old X-Fi Ti Fatal1ty Pro card. Slightly less bright and a little more Hi-Fi sounding IMO.

I have it hooked up to an absolutely marvelous sounding 1994 Kenwood mini component system. I just use the reference Realtek drivers without any of the Asus X-Fi MB bloatware, output a flat signal to the stereo, and boost the bass just a tad on the Kenwood's equalizer. Perfect. Who needs a sound card?

Do people not involved in music making seriously buy expensive sound cards today? Digital is digital folks, unless your integrated soundcard has an incredibly bad DAC or your soundcard has DSP "sound enhancer" functions (usually crap on both dedicated and integrated cards) any difference you hear is placebo. I don't want to sound like a dick, but the fine folks at Hydrogenaudio can explain this to you very well. Unless you produce music or require high-end surround audio, there is no sense in buying a dedicated sound card. This is not like integrated videocards. Hopefully, integrated graphics will eventually reach this point as well.