Buying a sound card

[Kafein]

So I've been wanting to actually use my new headphones as best as I can afford lately. Next thing I'm going to buy is a sound card.

Do you guys have any recommendations? I don't have any real price range although upwards of 100 euros seems to be a lot as I'm not really an audiophile, I just want a good sound card for gaming. To be more precise, I want a sound card able to encode surround sound in Dolby Digital because my receiver can only accept optical input.

[Armpit_Sweat]

Not sure if you need anything "external"... What kind of headphones you bought? If they are not some very fancy ones - i doubt you will get anything out of it Though i am not an expert.

I have some other stuff connected to my PC, so i have an ESI Julia (Juli@) soundcard + beyerdynamic dt 880 headphones. An overkill for playing games and movies, and i would not waste any money on it tbh. But i do hear difference using a guitar and fooling around in FL Studio, especially with a guitar.

[zagibu]

I'd just buy the new Creative Recon3d I guess, it has an optical output: http://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sound-blaster-recon3d-pcie

[Thomek]

Got an old soundblaster X-fi external one which is great. Surround too..  Also nice to have it on the desktop, don't have to dig for holes on the back of ur comp..

[Patoson]

ASUS Xonar Essence STX. I got it a few years ago and I still love it. The fact that I don't have to shut down a game to switch to headphones or speakers and do it on the fly with just alt-tabbing is great.