Need recommendations on a sound card and headset to buy for gaming.........price range $200-$350

Look into the Beyerdynamic MMX 300... It's pretty pricey, but its definitely the king of headsets. (NOTE: I said "headsets" not "headphones")

Best of luck ;)

- Matt

When I was into gaming I used the Grado SR60i headphones. Don't own it, but the ASUS Xonar seems to be a pretty good sound card. The Grado Xonar combo should keep you within budget. One thing you want to be sure of is comfort. Back in the day I could sit and play games for upwards of 4-5 hours at a time. You'll want some headphones that are comfortable and light in weight. If you really need a mic you could go with a separate one and not worry about feedback since you are using headphones. Best of luck to you.

I good gaming headset will set you back $100–$270 depending on what you get. Sennheiser has a few nice higher-end headsets that do surround-sound. Razer, Steelseries, and Logitech have a few good headsets as well that are also surround-sound. The Razer ones happen to have a built-in sound card (which is actually your best option).

The problem you're going to find is that any headset that is tailored more towards a gaming crowd and less towards those of us who really care about audio reproduction. That means they're going to do great at percussion and vocals but not the same full-body you get with a good set of cans. However, that's not their purpose so whatever.

I know a few people with the higher-end Logitech headset and they seem quite pleased with it. I know personally I'm quite interested in Sennheiser's higher-end headsets.