"I don't recommend a Sound Blaster for DAW work." AND " I see that 1ms is also claimed for this card but I get nowhere near that." AND "A little research into recording with DAWs would go a long way, Mr. Grundberg" These 3 comments suggesting against SB, and one suggesting the OP to do just "A little research", when these are the same parroted comments I've noticed over the last 15 years+ in an ever changing line of offerings. The sentiment made me want to comment just to straighten out what I see as a percentage of people who keep "rubber stamping" to not use SB in a DAW year after year, even though A 2010+ card is so different than say a 1995, 2000, or 2007 card etc.
When SB isn't working in a system, I can count on forum members to show up with several one sentence remarks saying not to use SB, when I, and many others are likely getting lower latency on some SB card versions than a lot of posters, likely getting 5-10 times the lowest rate possible they are getting, or yes, I'm saying 1/2 ms one direction, or 1ms round trip. I've also gotten .8ms before round trip. I can actually comfortably sing live (without direct monitoring) right into sonar using ANY effect I like, and at 1ms it feels live, with a few tracks. I'm not trying to start a war. I want to help, but I think some of the attitudes need to go, and a better understanding is line for newer Sound Blaster cards, on high end systems that are achieving better than some of the ultra pro solutions costing hundreds (not always of course). Also there's plenty of threads where other cards are having all the same troubles. It troubles me to read that and was tempted to make a video (may still do it), to show what is possible, except someone in our family is very ill, and I'm switching things around, and having issues with an SSD and little time. I may still do it as one install on an SSD seems to be getting this with Sonar Producer X3e in 32bit Windows 7 (patched). I'm sure there are people with configurations that are just not doing the trick, but this is also true of many other cards or USB setups etc. And I get to easily keep windows sound going, and with a special program can even record youtube videos direct into Sonar, or record Sonar out to windows. Not to say it can't be done with other cards. Just saying, SB's can keep up just fine.
That said, I have the Sound Blaster Titanium HD, and with Sonar X3e Producer and I'm getting, at best, 1/2 ms each way, by setting to 1ms, and sample rate of 88200 and 96000. No crackles or pops. I achieved this at 44100 at some point too, but trying to remember what I did. This is not with one track and one effect or soft synth either. The problem is understanding, and there are so many settings, I have obtained this several times, even with a good amount of plugins. But some things alter it, like what plugin I use, or the master clock, or the way it's configured in windows itself, which inputs/outputs and more. I got 1ms round trip and had several tracks like about 5-8 or so running CA-2A, BBE sonic maximizer, CW TTS 1, EQ's going etc, TH2 Producer, Slate virtual tape, and regular audio on an Asus i7 4770k at 4.5ghz and fast ram, with this SB card. So it's not a LIE. But make a few wrong settings, and it all changes. So people are likely getting different results here. Maybe I should post my exact settings sometime. I also can record in WDM/KS at 4-5ms, but prefer starting with ASIO at 1ms and winding up with 4-5 ms, then winding up with 10 or over.
As I started getting upwards of 4 or 5 tracks and loaded them up with multiple plugins in each rack, moog synthesizer (Yes, it was going), it was still good, but nearing the point of crackling. As my project grew, I had to then either freeze, or change to 2ms, then 4ms, and sometimes 5-7ms, but usually not. Had they been more like pure audio tracks, I could have likely gotten 16 tracks at 1ms-2ms. Funny thing is when I did a re-install to another SSD and did my best to set things right, I had forgotten some little things, and did NOT get the same results, but close. I'm still tweaking it and struggling, proving to me settings matter! Yet I still have a backup of the original. The most amazing thing (to me) I did was for fun to remix the original real 24 multi-track (21 tracks) of Madonna's "Lucky Star", and I needed some compressors, a bit of tape saturation emulation (could have used perhaps other plugins, but this worked), a touch of reverb on some things, EQ, BBE other various. And wanted to make it sound like the original for a game. At first it sounded really close, then I got lucky, and now it's so close, it sounds so much the same as the original, it's hard to discern differences in mix and dynamics/punch etc. However I couldn't pull off 1ms with 21 tracks and that much going on.
But 4ms or 5ms and 21 real audio tracks running plus a bunch of FX isn't shabby. If I'm wrong it was no more than 5 or 7, but I feel fairly sure I was at 4-5. That is astounding for the ever disliked Sound Blaster. But what bugs me is it's elusive on large numbers of tracks and that was my complaint, until I saw others getting worse results than me. I have no problems getting some mixes with 8 or so channels and effects at under 4ms and sometimes 1-2ms round trip. Sometimes it's true, it does not work out as well. But the new SB cards, when everything is set right, and you have a beast of a CPU, and use the right drivers, it really can achieve very low latency. I hope this helps some realize that SB's best cards have some pretty fast DSP hardware on them. I'm still experimenting and learning, and also curious what I might obtain with a different card. But not sure if I will beat the results I've obtained. And not everyone is going to get the exact same results unless they have the exact same hardware or better. I hope this helps open some people's eyes that SB shouldn't be simply tossed out, but a better look needs to be taken, IMO.