[rayven1lk]

Currently using these headphones with my PC and am enjoying the sound, but have seen a lot of posts mentioning these headphones are relatively harder to drive and will require a AMP/DAC combo.

The motherboard I have is an ASUS Maximus IX Code. It comes with a

• ESS® Sabre Hi-Fi ES9023P DAC
  
  
• Texas Instruments® RC4850 op-amp

Given the above components from the motherboard, will it make much of a difference to invest in a AMP/DAC combo? If so, any recommendations?

I'm not in a hurry to buy these at the moment (since I dished out some for the headphones ) and I like the sound for the moment. But will consider going upto $300 down the line if necessary.

Mostly using headphones for gaming (Shooters and adventure) and music (genres like: Metal, Hard Rock, EDM)

 

[prymortal]

Do you need one vs that onboard? No, Asus onboard should soften the sound & add some bass on top.
Will you benefit from one? Yes a decent Dac/Amp improves the sound greatly especially across the treble which can be ear piercing on cheaper units (when using the K712).

K712 with shooters is good, reminds me alot of the HD58X with gaming, only difference is i can't remember if its the forward or centre imaging has a spread to it which can be an issue for some FPS games where you are using your ears to pin point. Very small issue, takes a bit of use to notice.
As for music Metal, Hard rock..... I'd avoid the K712 only headphone to give me literally headaches listening to that due to the treble harshness in the cymbals. If you are not bright sensitive or lack hearing in the treble frequencys... it might not be an issue for you.. Decent dac/amp also helps. EDM though its Great for!!!!

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Currently using these headphones with my PC and am enjoying the sound, but have seen a lot of posts mentioning these headphones are relatively harder to drive and will require a AMP/DAC combo.

The motherboard I have is an ASUS Maximus IX Code. It comes with a

• ESS® Sabre Hi-Fi ES9023P DAC
  
  
• Texas Instruments® RC4850 op-amp

Given the above components from the motherboard, will it make much of a difference to invest in a AMP/DAC combo? If so, any recommendations?

No way to tell since the info doesn't tell us anything about the output impedance and power output level.

It's like if I needed a 4cyl engine for a Lotus chassis, and I didn't really ask questions on what kind of high performance engine I'm looking at, so instead of a 8,000rpm Honda or Toyota-Yamaha engine I can end up with a high torque, low rpm 2.8L Mitsubishi turbodiesel. Or you say you need a V-twin engine for a bike and you didn't elaborate further, so now your chopper is sitting next to a crate that has a lower low rpm torque, very high RPM (for a twin engine) Ducati engine.

I'm not in a hurry to buy these at the moment (since I dished out some for the headphones ) and I like the sound for the moment. But will consider going upto $300 down the line if necessary.

Try it with the motherboard first. If you like the sound and get loud enough without noticing the bad kind of distortion, then no need to get an amp (not that the distortion isn't there, but in your use case you either don't hear it or it just EQs the sound to sound the way you want it to; note that this would not be the case if you swapped out the motherboard).

If you don't like the sound then ask around and people can flesh out whether you're getting distortion or noise cranking up the volume or gain on that motherboard, or if it sounds like the problem is the output impedance screwing with the response of the headphone, or if it's consistent with what K712 owners tend to hear with what isn't an amp and it only just gets cleaner and louder with an amp, it means you need different headphones.