Do i need surround headphones with a 7.1 sound card?

[iSammmmmm--]

I'm primarily a gamer, however i want to know whether it would be worth getting a 7.1 sound card and a good pair of Sennheiser's (or equivalent) or a headset with 7.1 built in would give me better audio positioning such as footsteps.

 

[olafgarten]

7.1 headphones are a gimmick, just get a good pair of stereo headphones, and they will do all the sound positioning that you want with a decent soundcard, give me a budget and i'll help you choose.

 

[iSammmmmm--]

7.1 headphones are a gimmick, just get a good pair of stereo headphones, and they will do all the sound positioning that you want with a decent soundcard, give me a budget and i'll help you choose.

I found an Asus xonar DS sound card on discount for around £28 but probably around £40 for the sound card and up to around £100 for the headphones, although i will need a mic which i don't mind having seperate but i'd prefer it to be included in that budget, let's say £150 for the package of headphones, sound card and mic if that's possible

 

[olafgarten]

For headphones I would recommend the Grado SR80i, you should get them for about £100, the xonar ds will go nicely with those, and finally for the mic, I have heard good things about the Trust Starzz mic, I haven't owned one, but it looks ok, that should be about £10, so in total about £140.

 

[legend001523]

Sound cards are only good for surround sound stereos imo, headsets will do fine with on board sound

 

[olafgarten]

But you won't get proper positioning without a sound card that supports gx/alchemy.

 

[iSammmmmm--]

For headphones I would recommend the Grado SR80i, you should get them for about £100, the xonar ds will go nicely with those, and finally for the mic, I have heard good things about the Trust Starzz mic, I haven't owned one, but it looks ok, that should be about £10, so in total about £140.

Awesome, thank you so much, those ehadphones are currently £80 on Amazon, the sound card is discounted to £27.49 and the mic is around £10 so that's great, thank you again!