PC soundcard advice

Im just a newbie but im shopping around for similar equiptment. Theres a good section on soundcards at http://tweakheadz.com/guide.htm .

speaking of, were did you get the ShureSM57 from in Australia and how much did it cost? I priced one today at my local store and they wanted almost $300AUS for it, which i thought was a bit steep. Did you buy it in store or order it online?

Flintstone
If you want to use a dynamic mic as the SM57 (or smilar) you need a Pre-amplifier between the mic and the soundcard line in port.
The mic input of a standard PC soundcard has too low gain for professional mic´s as the SM 57 and the mic input is normally very basic.
And semi-pro soundcard for recording use normally only has line-in ports (no mic input).
Therefore you need a mic Pre-Amp or a Mixer (with mic pre-amps).

I am using a low cost 24 bit soundcard and a mixer (with 2 mic preamps) plus a Behringer XM8500 mic (a SM58 copy) . And this is givin me fairly good recording results.
As long as I am doing recordings in a normal room with normal room noise and room echo I will not spend a lot of money on pro-gear as I will not be able to use the better quality of the Pro stuff.

So a preamp will be required too. I guess a mixer will be needed soon at any rate. Is there something to look for in mixer preamps like signal to noise and gain figures, or are they all similar enough?
I am getting the shure from a ebay store for AU$132 + postage. The best my local store could do was $189 and yes rrp is $300.

As I am a Behringer fan I would recomend you to check their stuff at http://www.behringer.com/
And you can see the US prices here http://www.zzounds.com/cat--Behringer--3526
They have a new Xenyx series of mixers with netter pre-amps than the previous UB series.