So stay away from Creative and go with any Asus card that fits your budget. I am now using the on board Realtek ALC892 that came on my Asus P8Z77-V, and it works great using the optical SPDIF at 24 bit 96,000 Hz. Yes I could have bought a different brand, but locally only Creative is available and I was young and foolish. Of course, all the above is just my opinion as a long time sufferer. Not in Creative's case, though - their driver problems are legendary and their lack of solutions in the face of universal criticism also reveals their total lack of concern for their customers. Yes, it's old hardware, but how hard is it to continue support on your own hardware when each legacy unit that's still in service is a testament to the manufacturers quality and longevity? Almost every other PC hardware company maintains a driver database to cover any hardware that will still plug into a slot or port, and the O.E.M.'s drivers are almost always the best ones to use. MAONO Good Quality Special External Equipment Full Set Sound Card.
Nothing I tried would get it to work properly in Win 7. USB Virtual 7.1 Channel USB Sound Card 5HV2 Adapter - External Sound Card For Laptop. I used Kx Mixer for my Audigy 2 card just to get it to work in XP. Creative has always used cutting edge graphics on their packages and their software looks all futuristic and cool, but the truth is Creative's hardware and software is bottom rung crap that rarely works properly together - witness the dozens of third party drivers that have been written for Creative hardware in an attempt to address these problems.