Mac user? This complicates things a lot.
Do you do your gaming in Windows, or OS X? Can't help you with the latter, but for the former, you might want to consider the Asus Xonar U3. Not much in terms of EAX support for older games, but the same applies to all of Creative's external offerings (they do it in software at best), and I highly doubt you're running a Mac Pro to permit PCIe card usage.
There are higher-quality options floating about, I'm sure, but they also cost a lot more than $40 and won't offer Dolby Headphone in games if you need it.