Help Sombrero buy a sound card!

[Super-Duper Sombrero]

So my integrated ports on my computer have started to go out. I have to wiggle the jack around in order to get it to send sound to both channels at full volume.

I have decided that buying a sound card is the best solution, as I want to get some surround sound, anyway.

I was looking around on Newegg, but I quickly realized that I have no idea what I'm looking for. Anyone have any recommendations or general advice on this topic? I'm not looking to spend more than $40, but I'm willing to make an exception if it's worth it.

EDIT: A MIDI port is a plus, but not entirely necessary.

[Kanthos]

Do you want a good soundcard for remixing (in which case $40 is probably too low) or one more for basic MP3 playback and gaming?

[Super-Duper Sombrero]

Music and gaming, mainly.

[Kanthos]

By music, I'm guessing you mean playing MP3s and so on. You won't find a decent soundcard for remixing for $40 anyway.

Is your machine a laptop or desktop? If a desktop, does it have an empty PCI slot?

[Super-Duper Sombrero]

Yes, it's a desktop and I have plenty of open PCI slots.

[kitty]

I don't really deal a lot with sound cards. But I've been quite satisfied with my Creative SoundBlaster Live card I got with my Dell a long time ago. I actually moved it to my "gaming" desktop.

I did a quick search on Newegg for a good inexpensive Creative card. I avoided the "gaming" cards because those are jacked up in price and you should only get one if you really are a gaming and technology fanatic (like the nVidia 8800 graphics card). However, I believe sound quality is much harder to pick out than graphics quality. But then again I never put much emphasis on sound.

So this card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102002 is good for listening to your music (you'll definitely notice an increase in quality over your integrated sound.) Gaming-wise it features Creative's EAX stuff. EAX helps games seem more realistic by making sound appear like it's in a real-life environment (better and more thorough description at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_audio_extensions). Personally I wouldn't notice a difference but you may like it. The only thing you may want to note about the card is that it does not have the MIDI port you wanted.