Sound Card for Gaming?

That is a fine gaming sound card. You may also want to check out the Creative X-Fi Titanium HD, which is reputed to have better positional sound than the Xonar cards, and is supposed to be awesome for music as well.

 

I've been using the Auzentech Forte for ~ a year now for competitive gaming, and it's been great.

It has an X-Fi chip built in, so you won't have driver nightmares like the Asus you mentioned.

You can get one for about $90 off of Auzentech's site. I'd suggest doing that, and spending more money into your headphones. If you want to go the budget route, the Audiotechnica ATH-AD700 are near-unbeatable for any cans under $200 in terms of soundstage IMO.

Those, plus the little Zalman clip-on mic would make for a much better gaming experience. Especially with the Auzentech Forte, which happens to have a headphone amp onboard.

Just my 2 cents.

Auzentech cards are very good, based on the previous generation X-Fi cards. That would be a second choice. The third choice are Xonar series. The first choice is X-Fi Titanium HD, no doubts there. If it's gaming you're after, the Titanium HD is for you.

Gaming and gaming alone? People seem to have great love for AD700, as it has clear audio and great for positional accuracy, though light on bass, which makes them better for competitive gaming, rather than immersion gaming. PC 360 seems to be alright, with its mic being a strong point, though I'm not very familiar with that one, mainly for being a headset. Which reminds me that there are plenty of people who mod AD700 along with a boom mic, which often results in much better performance than any headset, but YMMV.

Given your budget, you could just skip both those headphones and go for AD900, which can be had for $230, and I'm sure you can find it at a lower price. Those will serve you well for quite a long time.

It can be driven without an amp, though it might benefit to some degree from amping. But it's not a requirement, only if you want to bring out more of its sound.

Those headphones are known for their gaming prowess, but beware that they're not for the casual "fun" listening.

 

Anyway, like I said before, people both mod or attach clip-on mics to those headphones, making for a much better performing combo, a custom headset if you will

 

Like it was said before on several places, AD900 is better than AD700, a more refined version in every aspect, but if you're going for the AD700, they will certainly work fine.

This is the Zalman mic. Sometimes it goes on super sale for around $5.

http://www.amazon.com/Zalman-Microphone-Zm-Mic1-Sensitivity-Headphone/dp/B00029MTMQ/

A fairly common gaming setup is the AD700 with that mic, it gets rave reviews. I just picked one up today for some hot Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro + Zalman mic gaming action.

 

Edited by Coelacanth - 4/22/11 at 1:37am