I have creative 7.1 hooked up to titanium card, to get direct sound from the speakers I had to buy 4 male to male stereo leads(3 pole), so instead of the back speakers being "upmixed" they now play "direct", the default cables that come with the creative inspire T7900 are 4:3, 4 plugs from the bass box, 3 plugs to the card, the cable should be 4:4, 4 plugs from the bass box and 4 plugs to the card.

If you watch Bluray/HD on the pc it is quite an experience to be truly surrounded by the sound that comes from a HD movie that supports 7.1, I also feel that the industry will more than likely adopt 7.1 as the next gen, more so than 6.1, as 7.1 gives more range at the back than 6.1.
So unless you are an audiophile and need the best of sound you could just get a 5.1 set, but if 7.1 does take hold in the near future, it would be nice to already have them.

If I could I would have my speakers shaking the walls of the house, and use the most expensive noise cancelling microphone money could buy and just tear shreds out of anyone that dare try to sneak up behind me!

I used to have a set of 5.1 speakers from creative that came with a decoder, it was called "Cambridge soundworks" or something like that, but anyway, I could hook these speakers up to a DVD player to experience the surround from the DVD and it was Awesome, it was so Awesome that a person I used to live with turned it off while watching an action movie becuase everytime he heard sirens or dogs barking he thought it was coming from outside the house and would go to the window or front door of the house to make sure everything was ok, only to realise it was the Sound from the DVD projecting the sound, it disturbed him so much he turned off the speakers and watched the DVD in glorious Stereo, and that is a true story!
Games also sounded great.
The speakers done an excellent job at producing surround sound, but they were crap at reproducing any "Vocals" due to lack of "tweeters" in the speakers to play the high range stuff.