Not sure about the Fatal1ty version, but my normal x-fi titanium works perfectly on vista 64-bit. Should be the same, I'm sure; like I don't think you would have any issues.
I had the barracuda right before it, but unfortunately I don't have any decent quality headphones to test the differences between the two yet (waiting for some better ones in the mail). They sound fairly similar to me when on the razer barracuda HP-1 headset with a small edge going to the x-fi card. And this might also be giving a bit of a "home field advantage" to the AC-1 (many reviews I read stated that the headphones sounded quite a bit worse out almost any other sound card, again whether this is true or not I can't tell).
I would do another comparison when I get my grados headphones in, but I sold my ac-1 to my cousin, so I might not have a chance until long after you've already bought the card that you want
EDIT: By the way, I'm sure you could find a better card in your price range. I only went with the titanium because I needed a PCIe x1 card and found some one selling 10 new titaniums on ebay for $45 each.
If you do end up following the titanium path maybe consider getting just the plain titanium and not the fatal1ty edition. The only difference between the two cards is that one has more onboard RAM that the other (apparently 16mb vs 64mb according to creative here:
http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowA...aspx?sid=54521) and to be honest it's really just a gimmick. You have 8gb, the extra 48mb footprint from a sound card would never make a difference.
Edited by Deathsnapper - 2/10/09 at 3:31pm
