newbe sound blaster live! 24bit pci card question....

hi all,

im thinking about buying a sound blaster live! 24 bit pci card to
replace my onboard realtek ac97 sound card. you cant beat the price at
$24 to $29

the sound quality will be better just because, im assuming and still
reading and looking for reviews and articles.

my question is this! does a sound card act as a video card where the
sound card will free cycles from the processor. when i play music using
windows media player my systems slows considerably when using other
applications at the same time such as firefox and thunderbird.

im running a gateway 310s with an intel thrasher r1 mother board, a
celeron d 2.8 ghz processor, 1 gig of ram, an ati 9200 pci video card
and an antec 350 watt power supply and five internal fans. this rig does
o.k. for what i use it for.

im also thinking of replacing the processor with a pentium iv x.x ghz
processor, but thats another story to discuss somewhere else.

any comments or links to reviews on the creative sound blaster live! 24
bit pci card would be greatly appreciated and welcomed.

i'll continue to look on my own also.

bob brozewicz
pittsburgh, pa.