Sound Card help

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1

im looking into buying a sound card for my rig. My buget is $200.  I have some cards in mind but would like to hear others input. plannning on using it for gaming, listening Metal, and bass heavy song. thank you for taking the time to help me.

 

my Pick:http://www.microcenter.com/product/353888/Sound_Blaster_X-Fi_Titanium_HD_PCIe_Sound_Card

or

http://www.microcenter.com/product/316933/XONAR_Essence_STX_PCIe_Sound_Card

myrig:

Case: NZXT Phantom

Motherboard: Asus Sabertoth Z77

CPU: Intel I7 3770K

GPU:MSI AMD 7950 3Gb twin frozer III

Cooling Unit: NZXT Kraken X40

RAM: Corsair Vengeancen 8Gb

HD: 2TB Western Digital Caviar Black

PSU: NZXT Hale90v2 80 plus gold 1200W

OS: Windows 7

Headphones: Skullcandy plry 2

fans: 3x 200mm, 4x120mm 

2

From experience, unless you need a sound card for a very spesific reason it's really uncessary to get one. Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but pretty much any integrated / non-integrated sound will work fine unless you have all your music in FLAC and are a complete audiophile. 

3

Sound cards. They wont really make a difference unless you have good quality headphones/speakers.

But out of those two sound cards i would go for the Asus xonar.