I recently installed a Chaintech AV-710 soundcard in my HTPC which uses the Via Envy 24 chipset, has an optical SPDIF, and costs less than $25!

My HTPC is using a Biostar M7NCG-400 motherboard which doesn't have the MCP-T Southbridge, so no "Soundstorm" onboard audio. Sound was routed through an optical SPDIF and was good, but not as good as the sound on my other systems which have the "Soundstorm" implementation.

This little sound card is a great deal for the price! It supports 96KHz playback, which sounds superb through my Onkyo/Axiom setup.

Just wanted to give a "heads up" for any Axiomites in the process of building an HTPC who wanted great sound output for cheap!

I heard you can load prodigy 7.1 firmware onto that card, have you tried? I have a Chaintech AV515m but I don't know if I can do as many cool things as AV-710. I might just buy one later.

I found out that yes, it is possible to load Prodigy 7.1 firmware to the AV-710. The instructions and files were found at Head-Fi.com using "search".

I did the d/l, but I haven't tried it yet. I'll get to it later today, and let you know how it goes!

you know u will loose the analog functionality of the card, right? only SPDIF would work

Yep, I saw that about the analog jacks.

I've got a lot of vinyl I'd like to tranfer to MP3's, so I'm going to hold off on the flashing. It sounds really good now, I was just listening to Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" while reading, wound up just listening!