Sound card recommendations?

[mvelcheck]

I recently purchased the V collection, and I'm looking to update my (built in) sound hardware.

The problem I'm trying to solve is latency---I'm averaging about 45 ms for each of the V collection instruments when run in stand alone mode.  This is using a P4 3.0 GHz with 1 GB RAM, and the onboard Realtek hardware.  ASIO drivers didn't appear to help much.

I'm not looking for anything too fancy, and would prefer a PCI card over a USB device (unless someone can convince me why I want to use up another USB port). 

Older forum responses mention the M-Audio Audiophile 2496, which runs about $100, and has the added benefit of MIDI I/O.  Is this still a viable solution?

Thanks,

Mike

[Dooley]

Well, as far as audio quality, just about any sound card should give you noticable improvement over the integrated Realtek (AC97?).

A decent sound card should also give you significantly improved latency over the Realtek. You should try to look for actual latency specs on various cards.

M-Audio stuff usually seems to have good user reviews. Their midi keyboards have compatibility issues with Windows Media Center Editions so something to look into if you happen to have that OS.