[xfls]

Hi guys, I want to upgrade with a new sound card, but I'm looking for a set of specific features. It would be very helpful if you guys could give me some examples or share some thoughts, here is what I'm looking for:
 ● An internal PCI-E sound card with good quality DAC(24/192)/ADC(not necessarily 24/192)
 ● The fewer channels the better, preferably only stereo output. Has to have an input.
 ● No interest in features such as headphone amplifiers or mic pre-amps. I am using a pair of active monitors.
 ● ASIO support would be nice, but is not a necessity.
I am primarily interested in PCI-E instead of USB for the following reasons: I am using a PC; My setup is not high-end enough for me to worry about any interference; I am not sure about this, but since I need as low latency as possible(I play guitar through a PC effect with ASIO4ALL) wouldn't USB affect that negatively? 
 So basically I just want a good card for listening music plus a good input. It may be that such solutions don't exist, if so would the X-Fi / Xonar be too much of a waste of money, because of the many features I wouldn't be using?

 

[stv014]

What is your budget ?

 

[xfls]

I'm looking for something around 50-80$, but I am interested to hear opinions on what is good in general and why.
 

 

[stv014]

From that budget, you could get a Xonar DX. It is an 8-channel card, though, but the front channel output has fairly good quality (the other channels use a slightly lower quality 6-channel DAC chip; I tested the PCI version here). Latency on Windows may be problematic, however, depending on the drivers and what audio API your software uses.
For your purposes, a pro audio card (e.g. from E-Mu) would probably be a good choice, but many/most of these may be above your budget. You could look for used ones that are available at a decent price.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Should be able to find a used Xonar DX sound card under your budget.
Also install the third party drivers from Brainbit, "Unified Xonar Drivers".