Lol, more zombie threads! Yaaaaay!
For anyone considering this sort of issue now though (3 years on I might add), I would suggest steering well clear of anything Creative if you use Vista. My new X-Fi is apparently the best thing since sliced bread in XP, but my Vista install begs to differ. Popping, random distant sounds up close, stuttering in games, pathetic EAX support (Bioshock is unplayable with EAX enabled), yeah, great fun.
Asus recently released the Xonar line and honestly? If I hadn't just bought an overpriced, poorly drivered, average performing P.O.S, I'd go out and grab one of those in a heartbeat. They sound as good as an X-Fi, they perform equally to an X-Fi (and in some cases better) and they're better supported (so far) than an X-Fi. Not only that, their EAX emulation works much better than Creative's own package and with the way Vista handles sound processing, any advantage the X-Fi had in the past is completely quashed.
For XP users though, the X-Fi still reigns supreme.