Seeing that this issue has been happening for a long while and that it also occurs with very old versions of Audacity as well as with other software (RX Standard), my first inclination is that your interface hardware is defective.
Before throwing it out, it is worthwhile to check that everything is running at the same sample clock rate. Audacity’s project rate in in the lower left-hand corner. To check the recording rate, Windows-key-R >> mmsys.cpl >> Recording Tab >> Your device >> Properties >> Advanced > Default Rate. To check the playback rate, do the same thing but use the Playback Tab.
If they are all at 44100, then try setting them all to 48000.