Looking for a 7.1 sound card.

[wijita]

Whats the best out there today?
I'm pretty sure I'm going to be buying a Razer Tiamat 7.1 headset in the next day or so.
I don't want to use my motherboard's onboard sound.
I've looked at Creative, Asus, HT, etc but don't really know what's best.
I would like to stay under $200.

 

[ssddx]

as a side note i'd suggest getting a pair of hifi headphones over any gaming headset as you would get much better quality audio. if you want surround sound you can always make it virtual with your soundcard. for a mic there are very nice boom-mic options available. completely your choice there i just thought i'd throw that at you.

the best bang/buck is going to be something like the xonar dx which has the same dac as the $200 stx but without the amp. the creative z also isnt bad for sub $100 and has a very strong amplifier (perhaps too strong for anything but hifi headphones). if you end up going hifi headphone you might end up using an external amp instead though which makes the dx a better choice for that.

i wouldnt spend $200 for a soundcard for a $150 gaming headset regardless. at most i'd spend in the $50-100 range. with gaming headsets you generally are not going to be noticing the difference as much as you would on nice higher end headphones. if you insisted on paying $200 then the stx is a great choice for that budget.