I am thinking about buying a new PC. As you know, my PC is broken and I wanted to buy an Athlon 64 3300 with an Audiophile 2496 soundcard. Is this card good enuff?
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audi…2496-focus.html
Best regards,
Marcel
good enough for what?
Ooops 
I need a fast and reliable low-latency card, because I use realtime MIDI-Input sometimes. As ASIO gives me lower latencys than DX does, I thought this might be a good card.
What I want to know is, how fast is the card (well, lower CPU-usage means more ability for VSTi) and how stable are the drivers?
Sorry, my first posting was done in a rush
Totally satisfied with Audiophile 2496 by myself. Recommend!
for me the sound of the cards is the most important thing (after the latencies) … imho m-audio d/a- a/d-converters are totally ok (compareable with Terratec Producer!?) - but maybe not good enough for mastering and other professional needs …
I keep my eyes at the moment on the Focusrite Saffire firewire audio-interface - unfortunately too expensive for me @ the moment - but i want it!!! 
i’m using the E-MU 1212m … great audio quality … but the drivers could be better.
Well, as I have to buy all PC-stuff again (including stuff like HDD etc.) I have to save as much money as possible. As the card only costs 99 EUR, it sounds reasonable to buy it.
I was the proud owner of a Terratec EWX 24/96 but the drivers were instable…
i have audiophile 192 and its quite decent card. it would be interesting to A/B it with some other cards though. unfortunately i havnt had a chance to do that.
But what CPU is athlon 64 3300? as far as i know there is no such CPU. BTW check that CPU has “venice” core… and not older “Winchester” (if you shop around AMD 64 3500+)
Could recommend it. Drivers very stable, sound very good, latency: using DX with 5 ms on P4 2.8, no problems (using midi, vstis and samples together).
For this price (saw it 88 EUR) unrivaled.
Concerning the CPU this was just a value that crossed my weird mind.
What about the Audiophile 192? Flatter frequency response, balanced outputs…if you can spend a little more, it might be worth going for this instead?
Well… I could do this, but then I’d have to downgrade my PC… Not enough money 
Some users have reported some hiss that comes out of audiophile 192.
And i can confirm that the hiss is there. Although the hiss is dependant only on the input level of my monitors and not output level of drivers. So if i turn input level on of my monitors all the way up, the hiss is clearly audiable and disturbing (even if i turn down or mute it on drivers, it doesnt matter). And vice versa, if i turn the input level of monitors little down the hiss is much quieter and not disturbing. And even if i turn the output level on drivers all the way up the hiss is not getting stronger.
So basically i have set input level of my monitors to half. That way i have plenty of volume if i turn up the slider on drivers and the hiss is almost inaudiable (i can hear it only when i put my ear very close to speaker…
so if you somehow dont have input level regulator on your monitors/speakers then you should be careful / just in case…
other than that this card seems quite decent!!
sorry for my not so fluent english/ im in a hurry too right now 
EDIT: i use balanced TRS cables that cost me around 27 EUR , so i dont think its my cabling!!
Go for delta 1010 or 1010LT! Very good price/quality!
So, finally I am the owner of a new PC I bought a completely different soundcard which has 24bit / 196 khz and is 64bit-compatible.
It is a Terratec Card I tested it in the store and was pretty impressed. The shipped-drivers were awful but the Online-Drivers are simply great
Thanks anyway