Which Sound card to get?? What improvements??

[ant_1984]

Hi I'm thinking of going out and doubling my ram to a 1GB and getting a soundcard tomorrow as I only have onboard sound.
I'm looking at Creative SB Live, Creative Audigy SE, Creative Audigy2 ZS 7.1. I want to try not too spend too much but I was just wonderign which you think I should go for.
My system is as follows:

P4 2.8Ghz
512Mb Ram
60GB HDD
Radeon 9600 Pro
AC97 Sound (onboard)

Thanks,
Anthony Young

[FatTulip]

Unless you have or intend to get an excellent set of speakers and are likely to use your PC for media rich applications, then just go for a standard PCI card.

Make sure the card has full hardware support for 3D sound (as opposed to software emulation) and go for a cheapy!!!

7.1 digital sounds great attached to your TV, but on a pair of desktop speakers it's no better than your ac97.