old thread and Im resurrecting it..lol, I blew onboard audio

Anyhow I order one of these X-fi's 5.1. I was wondering this.. I have 7 factory speaker setup + sub (7.1) if i ran it right..but it's cold and im lazy for now.. my original setup Laptop audio only had 2 channel so I split this to 2 amps.. 4ch and monoblock but that didnt give any fade obviously for my front and rear, so my question is all these card that have the 5.1,7.1 in order to acheive the fade are they running there rear speaker in surround mode? I want full range on the front and rears and sub controlled seperatly on another fade. From what Im gathering is the sub out and the rear speakers only work in surround mode so only give the rear speakers a echo effect.. anyone runniing theses type of cards without it in surround mode? that can fade front to rear.
feel free to comment I was going to do center channel seperate but then i would need another amp and that not worth the cash for center stage.
I reviewed some other options..
JLAudio 6 channel 75Wx6 RMS
JLAudio monoblock 500Rms
this would give me the 5.1 but not sure if it warrants the extra cash as far as sound, the factory amp had the center tied into the L/R along with the dome tweeters as illustrated in the pic. That I left normal..I suppose I could split all these into a 7.1 but I would like a real world review if anyone has that setup and what there comments are being in such a small area unsing 7.1, 5.1.. as of right now this setup in 4.1