Looking for sound card

[kwatson512]

I've just gone through an exhaustive process to try and get my Creative SB X-Fi card to work. I appreciate the help folks offered in the Installation/Boot forum. I went through every process on every link, and ultimately failed to get this SB X-Fi card to work. So I've decided to ditch the card and get another one. I've looked at the ALSA matrix, but there are way too many selections and I'm not sure which of those are fully compatible with ubuntu/mint or attempted work-arounds. So I'm looking for tips on sound cards.

Here are my basic requirements:
- PCI slot
- front mic/line in
- front headphone out
- 5.1 speaker capability (or at least stereo plus subwoofer)
- onboard synth (I write and arrange music)
- decent specs (S/N ratio, freq range)

I need it to work with both linux and WinXP Media Center Edition (dual-boot).
System is a Dell XPS 400 desktop with a Pentium D 2.80 GHz processor, 4 GB memory, and plenty of storage.

Any suggestions welcome!

[67GTA]

This might help you get started: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport ... SoundCards