Asus Xonar DX - opinions?

I'm looking to upgrade my Phenom 965 + 8GB DDR3 + 790GX + 4890 system to a 5850 Toxic from Sapphire. First though, is the Asus Xonar DX a good sound card? This system is built only for gaming, but since EAX is relatively rare, is the Asus a good choice?

For strictly gaming, I'd still go with a Creative X-Fi product, like the Xtreme Gamer or Titanium. I find their sound and music augmentation features accomodate games better, like CMSS-3D and, as you said, EAX when it's provided.

The ASUS Xonar DX is good if you want to get DTS or Dolby Digital encoding, which is what you need when you want to hook it up to a speaker system via digital optical. The surround sound capabilities of the ASUS Xonar are good, but not as good as what the X-Fi cards can do in terms of gaming. Music and movies, however, are more in favor for the ASUS Xonar card.

This is strictly based on what I've observed between the cards, though. I'm not really what you would call an "audiophile" per se, so I would suggest waiting for someone else's opinion on the matter.

I don't think DTS is included with the card, and either way, I don't really care. I don't trust Creative's Win 7 x64 drivers which may or may not work. Just looking for sharper and all round better sound quality.

What speakers or heatset do you use? Its really not worth it to get a soundcard if you're just running some crappy speakers imo.

Logitech X-230.