I have tried and used many over the years from Creative to Turtle Beach to Hercules.
The ones that really stand out were:
Hercules Game Theater XP (for some reason during it's prime time it was the card to get) and SoundBlaster Audigy2 Platinum (the affordable 24-bit recording and somewhat decent inputs).

Right now I'm using a laptop based studio running E-MU 1616m and it's the best setup I've ever had. No fan noise, can take it anywhere and this is the best... edit my recordings outside on the deck enjoying a nice cold one (too bad it's winter now)


cheers,

ccdmax

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Yamaha PSR9000, PSR730, Korg PA1X Pro, Karma, X5D, Yamaha Tyros2 on it's way