The Audigy platinum, the best sound card available? Not a chance.
For all of the consumer cards that do EAX, here is a rough pecking order of sound quality:
Sound Blaster Live < Nvidia NForce < Sound Blaster Audigy < Hercules Game Theater XP < Philips Acoustic Edge < Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Also, you can get the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, which also has the best gaming headphone algorithms for positioning, for $45 USD before shipping and handling, OEM, online. Also, all of the Audigy's are really the same, so if you didn't need the mostly useless live drive/ waste of money metal box thingy, you could have bought an Audigy OEM for $57 + S&H.
However, the Audigy does 5.1 gaming, which should be useful with whatever 5.1 system you get, be it a one that is good for music, games and dvd's like the Cambridge 510D or a dvd/game and NOT music -specific system like the Klipsch Promedia 5.1. If you care more about 5.1 gaming in the FUTURE than you do about sound quality and dvd quality and headphone positioning and 4.1 gaming right now, than the Audigy is good.
Here's a good comparison of the 510D and Promedia 5.1:
http://www.extremetech.com/print_art...a=24415,00.asp
So...
5.1 gaming with okay positioning today - audigy
4.1 gaming with best positioning today - cruz
4.1 gaming with okay positioning today - cruz
5.1 gaming with best positioning tomorrow - audigy
okay eax today - cruz
best eax today - audigy
even better eax tomorrow - audigy
best headphone game positioning today - cruz
best headphone game positioning tomorrow - cruz
best sound quality today - cruz
best sound quality tomorrow - cruz
best dvd quality - cruz
best drivers today - cruz
okay to bad drivers today - audigy
best game compatibility today - audigy
extremely good game compatibility today - cruz
The good news is that the Audigy Platinum is going for lots of money on ebay...