It took A WHILE but finally Creative Labs introduced PCI-e version of their Sound Blaster X-Fi card. I saw pictures of it a year ago on Russian internet though - I guess coding for Vista was not exactly piece of cake :)

http://vr-zone.com/articles/Creative_Released_PCIe_X-Fi_Xtreme_Audio/5380.html

New card includes X-Fi Crystallizer feature ("to restore the details and vibrance lost during compression")
and X-Fi CMSS-3D (surround over headphones). The EAX HD is supported. Costs US $69

When I looked on specs I saw two little but nice extras compared to my old X-Fi

1) and there are optical input and output on the card,
2) connects to standard audio HD front panel on most PC cases

I figured out this card does not come with ac3 encoding only with decoding...

then I figured out that free  AC3 Filter ( http://ac3filter.net/projects ) allows for ac3 encoding anyway.

Thought this is worth sharing... Think this should work, does anyone have X-Fi Xtreme Audio and a receiver to try this out?