The majority of smack talk I've heard surrounding Creative is due to their shady business practice of not supporting some of their products that have large install bases (such as the Audigy 2 lineup).
They have demonstrated and admitted to limiting product functionality in the drivers for new operating systems, forcing consumers to buy newer products or look to third party drivers to re-enable functionality they were accustomed to in previous operating systems (such as the now "dated" Windows XP). Some fairly good third party drivers WERE made, and then creative threatened a law suit (claiming infringement of intellectual property) since they re-enabled functionality that the hardware was capable of, but which could impact their sales (since users might not buy new hardware since their existing hardware now worked again).
For this reason alone, I wouldn't suggest Creative Labs products. As a an owner of (what used to be) their high-end Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro sound card (which had an original MSRP of around $200), I find it unacceptable that they've failed to support their products or allow third party drivers to be openly distributed. The fairly popular/talked about "Daniel K" Audigy support pack works a little better (according to some) than the Creative Labs driver in Windows 7 64-bit with 4 GB of RAM, but I've yet to find a solid fix to issues with 5.1 playback while retaining proper mic functionality. This is apparently a matter of 64-bit addressing that could only be fixed by a "real" 64-bit driver by Creative.
I've had fewer problems with my X-Fi Titanium PCI-E, but I'm guessing that's because the system it's in has less than 4GB of RAM and I haven't tried any games or VoIP on it. I recently seemed to solve it's sound "cracking" problems with a reinstall of the creative drivers. My original Audigy Platinum card (precursor to the Audigy 2) was always a little glitchy / seemed to have conflicts.
If you're running 4GB of memory or more, a 64-bit Windows OS, and don't want to have to upgrade your sound card the next time a major OS is released, I would SERIOUSLY advise against Creative Labs products. Otherwise, they are an option that is at least worth considering. After all the shenanigans I've read and seen on Creative's forums, I plan to avoid doing further business with them due to what I feel are unethical business practices.
If you keep your X-Fi card, I'm guessing you will hear a difference over integrated audio (though integrated solutions have gotten much better over the last 10 years)... especially if you have some worthy speakers.
Sound cards share at least one thing in common with video cards:
You can have the best darn video card on the planet, but if you hook it up to a 16-bit 14" monitor with a max resolution of 800x600, it's a total waste. The same thing is true with a good sound card. If you spend much more than $50 on a sound card, I suggest investing at least twice as much on a worthy pair of speakers.
Whatever you decide, I hope your audio solution matches your budget and standards
