While I agree with Mac that upgrading to Band In A Box 2010 Ultimate Pak will give you, dollar for dollar, the most bang for the buck, I'm not sure it would entirely answer your question.

Since BIAB 2010 Ultimate will give you full access to all of the Real Drums and Real Tracks, as well as Real Band, you'll be able to do audio wave files for your backing tracks. BUT, if you're heavily invested into MIDI, and do a lot of editing of your MIDI tracks, and want to stay in MIDI, then a better MIDI synth would be the solution, and that would be the Ketron SD2. I have as of yet to find any software synth that is General MIDI capable that sounds as good as a hardware synth like the SD2. Less expensive? Absolutely. Bang for your buck, the SD2 wins hands down.

What kind of recording are you going to be doing? What other gear do you have for your recording? All of that you need to take into account in considering the purchase of a new sound card. One of the big questions is does your computer have the slots for an older technology sound card, like the M-Audio 2496? M-Audio has not released any PCI-e cards, that I am aware of. If you don't have a standard PCI slot available in your computer, you'll be forced to get something else.

While the RealTek may work for now, they really aren't designed for audio use, and they tend to die after a while. I've had that happen with a couple of them on different motherboards, they start getting crackly, volume goes down, distortion goes way up, and they just die. I would not count on the RealTek for any length of time.

Please define your requirements, your gear and where you want to go for a better answer.

Gary

I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!