Need help choosing soundcard/dac

[Meev]

Hello everyone, I need some help choosing new sound card.

I'm using DT 990 PRO 250 ohm headphones, and antlion modmic.

I'm looking for a new soundcard (my old one died). I would like it to be an external one.

I mostly game (FPS games, listen to music), I hardly ever use speakers, mostly headphones.

From my research and reading forums I am leaning towards buying Sound Blaster X7(it has mic input and headphone amp).

Are there any better alternatives? I need mic input and headphone amp.

 

[Meev]

I also forgot to add I don't really care about surround or 7.1 channels etc. All I need is stereo + mic input.

What do you guys think, is Sound Blaster worth it or something like Asus Xonar U5 will do?

 

[bixby]

I think the Creative might be overkill for playing games, but perhaps not since I know nothing about game sounds.

What I can tell you is the differences in dacs for a multi purpose pc and a decent listening device, like the Beyers or decent speakers is rather small. I just did a comparison with powered speakers and internal sound card on business class machine, to 3 external dacs ranging from $9 to $500. The results were rather surprising, all did well with slight differences as you went up in price.

If it were me, I would go for the least costly reliable model as long as it gets it loud enough for your tastes. You should be able to ballpark what power you need based on specs.

 

[Meev]

Thank you for help.

So something like:
http://pl.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sound-blaster-digital-music-premium-hd
or
http://pl.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sound-blaster-x-fi-surround-5-1-pro
should be fine?

I was leaning towards the first one since I dont really need 5.1 right?

 

[bixby]

I think the first one has a phono preamp built in it, so you are paying for that. It does say it will handle 300 ohm cans while the other one does not and neither has any power output specs listed.

Maybe something in the middle like this which says it can do 600 ohm headphones would be good:

https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Performance-Headphone-Integrated-Microphone/dp/B00EZT7RE4

EDIT: Scratch that one, poor reviews on Amazon.

EDIT2: The Newegg reviews are decent, some folks complaining about drivers, but I might chance it. Creative has been doing this for some time now.

 

[Meev]

What about this one https://www.asus.com/pl/Sound-Cards/Xonar-U7-MKII/

 

[bixby]

Looks good, not many reviews, but I have two Asus products a router, which is fantastic and an optical drive. Both are solid and work well. I have also reviewed some Creative devices in the past (see signature). And my daughter uses a Creative Roar daily and it has been going for years.