In the past buying a sound card was easy. Check for a MIDI port and make sure it was full duplex. That's how I bought my SoundBlaster PCI 512 7 years ago for my PC running XP. The PCI 512 was great. It had onboard sound effects like reverb, chorus, flanger, etc. and never gave me a problem.

Recently I upgraded to a Dell Inspiron 560 with Core 2 Duo, Win7 Home Pro, 4GB memory. I installed the old PCI 512 but the computer wouldn't boot-up - just a blue screen of death. This started my search for a new sound card. Dell recommended the Turtle Beach Riviera. I remember years ago Magix had good things to say about Turtle Beach so I bought it. It works but the sound is very flat, no effects and the latency is nearly 1/4 second. Recording live using a keyboard is nearly impossible.

I've searched for hours on the web for MIDI cards and found nothing that looked like a winner. Complicating this matter is the Inspiron's PCI slots which are 3.3 volt instead of the old 5.0v standard. I've contacted Creative Labs (soundblaster) and they say they no longer have MIDI cards. I find that hard to believe since that's kinda how they got started.

Anyway -- does anyone have any card recommendations (that don't break the bank)?