Just a quick point of info, for those of you bearing your 'high CPU Utilization' figures from reviews of the Hercules Muse sound card with the CMI chip or any other soundcards that used the CMI8738/PCI chipset, you're not comparing 'apples to apples.' That version of the chipset is now fairly dated, and for the most part, all of its issues (specifically, CPU utilization) have been remedied. In fact, the CPU usage was close to nothing on both an Athlon XP 1700+ and Athlon XP 1900+ system I tested on. That really shouldn't be your concern to be completely honest, unless you have a sub 500MHz processor or so. Just for future reference, the latest revision of the CMI8738 is the CMI8738/PCI-6CH-MX (6 Channel soundcard with S/PDIF support)
Also, as far as drivers are concerned, thankfully, Microsoft seems to recognize C-Media (CMI) as being 'worthy' of having their driver updates at the WindowsUpdate site. Translation = you can expect to find basic, latest drivers for the C-Media cards at the WindowsUpdate website. Better yet, visit
CMI and download the drivers for yourself including the additional 'Audio Rack' software. The drivers are fairly robust, and extremely versatile supporting Microsoft Windows 9x/Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Linux, and BeOS. For the gamers out there, this card fully supports EAX.
In fact, C-Media released new beta drivers for Microsoft operating systems YESTERDAY! So if you're freaking about a possible lack of support, CMI is just as reliable as any other PC company.
Under Windows XP, you can use the analog 5.1 output, complete with separate volume control sliders for each channel. If your card comes with the S/PDIF output built onto the backplane, you can rest assured that the feature will be used under Windows XP (assuming you have a speaker system that makes use of these connectors). For the most part, as long as the soundcard uses the CMI8738/PCI-6CH-MX chip, if the card does not feature the S/PDIF output you require, you can pick up an additional backplane complete with TOSLINK In, TOSLINK Out, RCA Optical In, RCA Optical Out, 1 Rear Speaker Jack, and 1 Center/Subwoofer channel jack for $20 or so. Sure, you'll lose the 'value' part of this solution, however, with all these added inputs/outputs you'll easily have the most feature filled soundcard toda for under $35 or so.
All in all, I'm pleased by the solution, and definitely think it is worth the money. It is just as competitive as any Creative offering, without many of the conflicts Creative brings to the table, especially when used with extremely common VIA-based motherboards.
Peace
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