Sound Cards and Vista

[Raxxath]

I'm building a small PC right now, that among other things, will be holding all of my music. I've been using an X-Fi Fatal1ty on my gaming rig for a while now, and its served me well with little problems. However, I want to get the best sound possible out of my new PC on my Z-5500s(I know, not the best, I'll get better some day).

So, I need the best sound card for listening to music. I don't need any gaming features on it, but I do need digital out for connecting it to my Z-5500's coaxial input. Is there anything out there better than the X-Fi? Its also rather lacking in inputs/outputs, which bothers me.

Also, I'm considering trying out Vista on this PC, but I've heard of more than a few stories of incompatibilities and problems with sound cards. Should I be worried about that? Are there any features I would want that are exclusive to XP/Vista?

 

[robman_rob]

for what it's worth, i'm using x fi on vista, no, i haven't played any games on this computer though.
but a lot of "older" games in vista will not use eax from xfi unless you install creative's alchemy software to simulate direct3d (or something along those lines)