I built my new rig (specs in sig - the Phenom one) and it has Realtek onboard HD audio. I have the Logitech G51 speakers and am coming from a computer that had a cheap Creative 5.1 SB card that had an excellent control panel. I had a nice equalizer and misc settings for sound. I was also able to get music to play out of all 5 speakers at an equal volume. The control panel for this onboard sound is horrible. It has a similar Dolby setting, but it's total crap and causes some channels to cut out during playback. So I'm therefore looking for a nice 5.1/7.1 card (PCI or PCI-e - doesn't matter which) that has nice sound and a nice extensive control panel. It also has to be compatible with Windows 7.