indeed.
while older versions of reason will run ok on a dino such as yours, you really have passed the line for "law of diminishing return" some time ago. with barebones deals from $200 available online everywhere, i can find no way to substantiate any spending on a nearly 10 year old system (hopefully you can reuse some of your hardware if you are on a tight budget). what version of reason do you have? with a recent version, i feel like you will hit the ceiling of your RAM and processor rather quickly. long samples and signal processing eat clock cycles.
but since you asked, the cheaper soundblaster cards are generally no better (and in some cases, worse) than a lot of the standard onboard audio currently available on motherboards. personally, i wouldnt buy a creative product, since there are better options available at similar price point. i do have a friend with an audigy setup; whichever model is the TOTL (platinum? no remember). it doesnt suck, and has performed adequately for everything i have seen it do (which admittedly, is mostly playback and midi stuff). i like the jacks being on the front of the computer as they are on his model, but wonder what happens when a jack seperates from the pcb within? doesnt look like even a moderately talented solder-er would be able to get in there and fix anything, thus making a fancy paperweight.
are you looking to make your own samples, or just have higher sound quality for mixing (in case you dont use the "export as audio file" function)---IOW, playback only?
a
