Here's some more info on the new card.
Apparently, you can finally choose the SPDIF out sampling rate. Now you can set it at 44.1, 48, or 96 i think, instead of having it be locked at 48.
Also all the jacks are now gold plated again, instead of those silly colored plastic ones on previous models to comply with the PC99 regulations.
All the drivers have been vastly improved and the card supports Dolby DTS passthrough and DTS Audio CDs, even in Win2000 now.
The new card does sound noticeably better than any other SoundBlaster in existance. Couple that with a remote for lazy people like myself who like to watch DVDs with one or use it in Winamp or any software CD player, and it's really not that bad of a card.
ASIO support is welcomed too, apparetnly the latency is about 2ms in most applications.
Now I'm not saying that it can touch a RME card or anything, but for a multipurpose card that supports ASIO, all the 3d games, DTS, and has a remote and lots of free (albeit sort of crappy) software, its a decent buy. Just run your CDROMs spdif to the card, set the output to 44.1, and combine it with a decent outboard DAC and you've got pretty damn good sound coming out of your PC.