You can get other boards with the Envy24HT chipset in Taiwan, either generics or a Creative Audigy Gamer. Other brands are a big harder to find. I bought an M-Audio Revolution 7.1 which is also based on this chipset, but I bought it in the US. I talk about it a bit in this other sound card thread:
[forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.ph … 463#135463](Do I Really Need A Good Sound Card?
The main differences between the boards will be the Analog circuitry which can add noise and hum, and the quality of the drivers. If you are using the Linux drivers then the driver variation is not an issue…
As for sound delay, I’ve found that that only happens when you turn on advanced features that process the audio. The two main ones on the M-Audio boards are one that convert stereo to full surround, and another which simulates thumping bass on cheaper speakers that don’t handle bass well. Personally I don’t like those modes much, and regular unprocessed sound has no delay at all. Also the delay is much more modest than 2 seconds unless you have a very slow or heavily loaded system. The latter will be a concern for gamers as you don’t want your audio effects delayed when killing bad guys. Many advanced games generate full surround without needing to simulate it in the sound driver, so you shouldn’t need that feature.