Soundcard or audio interface

[Seearbe]

I think my Asus Xonar DX soundcard is giving me a BSOD every now and again and I probably need to free up the PCIe slot to fit a new GPU in. My onboard sound is awful - just so much noise comes through the speakers, so I'm wondering about using my Focusrite Saffire 56 as the permanent soundcard. It connects via Firewire 800 and ticks all the boxes from a performance perspective - low latency, high sample rate etc - and I don't use any surround sound.

Any reason why this wouldn't be sensible for gaming purposes?

 

[Seearbe]

I already have a FW card in another PCIe slot, so that's not an issue thankfully. I only use stereo speakers, which are active monitors, so I have to connect them via a mixing desk which is cheap and is adding noise to the signal flow.

If I wanted surround, presumably wireless headphones handle their own processing without a soundcard? or have I got that wrong?

 

[Seearbe]

Cool, thanks. Will dig everything out and give it a go if I'm not going to be on a hiding to nothing.

If you're interested form a production perspective, routing options on the Saffire are pretty flexible via an app called Mix Control. You can pretty much point anything to anything, which I think it why they've decided it's a "56" device. I mean it's not a product in the RME territory but it's pretty good for mid-level stuff. Plus it has a blue light.