Sound Card advice

Quote:

Originally Posted by isukevin 

I have sennheiser hd 598s and wanted to upgrade from on board sound. The main thing I use my pc for is games so I'd like it to be centered around that. I am was thinking about
http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Blaster-Titanium-Internal-SB1270/dp/B0041OUA38/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357613203&sr=8-1&keywords=creative+titanium+sound+card
But one of the reviews states that crossfire ruins this card due to noise or something. I have 2 gpus in crossfire so now I'm not sure what to get. Also would it be worth it to get a sound card or just get a dac? I only use headphones and don't even have speakers. I would prefer it to be less than 200 unless there's something amazing for a little more. Thanks for any help

For surround sound gaming, you need a sound card.

If all you do is 2-channel (stereo) gaming, then you can get an external DAC.

The HD598 is, by many accounts, a fine stereo headphone that also does binaural HRTF/ERTF surround pretty well, and for that, you want only two high-quality drivers since such surround signals are inherently two-channel.

You just turn on CMSS-3D Headphone, and you're good to go. Commence aural wallhacking.

My X-Fi Titanium HD works just fine, no noise artifacts in my sound or anything like that, but I should note that the Titanium HD is a different, higher-end (and more expensive) card with a slightly different driver set, and that I don't run SLI or CrossFire. (I'm running a P35 chipset board with which the second card would be starved with PCIe 1.1 x4 bandwidth, and I didn't think dual-card setups were worth it over newer single cards.)

Oh, and by the way, surround sound in PC games is hardly a new thing, unless you consider late-1990s games "new". Thank you, Aureal, for kickstarting the 3D audio revolution! (Only to get sued and then bought out by Creative...)

Crossfire with a sound card my block air flow. Some people report their cards can overheat as the sound card goes right next to the GPU board.

Just ensure you have good flow inside your chasis.

Otherwise a soundcard can be good value for money. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by isukevin 

Awesome. Thanks a lot for the help. I will double check how much space my case has and decide whether to get a card or just get a xonar u3 / Audioquest dragonfly. Those were the 2 exterior usb dacs I was looking at but after reading forums and reviews I can't tell if they are worth it for gaming or just music/movies

If you play games that use the DSPs for audio processing, then a soundcard may be a better option. Just get the shielded ones, to prevent any interference.