I recently purchased a new PC but have trouble deciding how I should hook up my 4.1 channel speaker set. Should I use the "8 Channel Audio with UAJ" that my motherboard uses, or should I go with the SB Live! Value card that I've had for several years now? The motherboard has one green port, while the sound card has both the black and the green, which seemingly would be more appropriate for my speaker system since it uses both. Any suggestions?

Go with the sound blaster live card. I have onboard 5 channel audio AC'97 and recently picked up a sb live card for $2. I installed the card and can't believe the difference. I thought sound is sound so what. There is a difference after all. Heck you already got it might as well use it. Put it in and listen for yourself, I bet you keep it in there. ASUS A7V8X Athlon XP 2700+ @ 2.17ghz 768MB DDR 2700 nVidia 128mb FX 5200 WD 80gb SE NEC ND-3500AG DVD R/RW

try each and decide based on how it sounds with your speakers. Different combos sound different. be sure to get new drivers for the soundcard from sblive.com

No comparison, go for the Soundblaster card.

soundblaster card is usually better since it's dedicated for sound, and relieves the cpu. In my case, however, the on-board sound sounds better than my SB live! 5.1 card. I had to get the card though, since using on-board sound prevents me from using a microphone (not enough ports).

Read your onboard sound card documentation. I have a motherboard with 5.1 sound and Dolby. The jacks switch function when the multi-channel sound is enabled. The microphone input becomes the secondary channels output. This is enabled by the software that come with the motherboard. Software is also needed to enable the SP/IF digital output.

There is the possibility that the SBLive will add 10c of heat to your cpu. It did with my old system and has done with other peoples. Tt Lanfire MSI K8N Diamond AMD64 3000+'Winnie' 1gb pc3200 OCZ Powerstream 520w 6600GT WDCaviar 160gb sata WDCaviar 160gb sata ;~}