ok, I also came accross this card as well.
AuzenTech XPlosion 7.1 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card
having HD optical outputs makes it superior to anything by creative. the only issue I see here is that it only supports EAX 3.0 and lower. The current EAX version is 5.0 and only the non HD cards like creative support that. my question is how important is EAX 5.0? I do a lot of gaming. Do most new games support lower verions of EAX?