I'm looking to buy a cheap, consumer-level sound card, preferrably less than $100 (U.S.). After an hour or so of reading old posts, it seems the most popular choices are the Terratec Aureon Sky 5.1, and the M-Audio Revolution 7.1. However, I've seen many posts that say the Audigy 2, while terrible at everything else, is the superior card for gaming. I'm a fairly avid gamer, but also listen to a lot of music, so this is a bit of conflict. What I don't really understand is how a sound card could be bad for gaming. Obviously, Creative's EAC spec has all sorts of neat effects, but AFAIK those would really only be noticeable in a surround sound system, and I don't have that; I only have a 2.1. (Dorm room = no place to put rear speakers). So with only a 2.1 system, how would either the Aureon or the Revolution be detrimental to sound in games?

You don't need surround speakers to take advantage of EAX, as it works well with 2 speakers or headphones too.

The other main advantage that the Audigy has is CPU load. The Audigy uses less CPU load than most other cards in games so leaves more CPU for AI and graphics.

To be honest, these "issues" with Audigy series for most people are unlistenable. There are some problems with resampling, but differences are noticeable only on some test signals and you have to be very well trained to listen them.

Audigy/ Audigy2 is great music card for games. It has wide support from developers of the games. It has very nice 3D effects, low CPU load, support for 5.1 speakers.