Newbie sound card installer needs help!

[apav]

Hey guys, I'm not really an audiophile but a lot of my friends have been raving about cheap sound cards over the onboard audio. Primary purpose is gaming(shooters, rpg) and sound is super important to me in that sense. I also like blasting music >

Things you need to know:

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131729

Speakers:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16836121036

Headphones/mic:
http://www.turtlebeach.com/products/xbox-gaming-headsets/ear-force-x11.aspx

Sound card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829270011

I have a couple questions about installing this sound card.

I guess the preamble to all these questions is if a sound card really improves sound quality. My friends all agree that a $30 is worth the investment in a soundcard, but is the difference noticeable?

1.) I'm putting 2 6950's in my motherboard. I'm guessing the cards will go in the dark blue and white sockets and the sound card will go in the black one?
2.) How will I hook the sound card up to my speakers? My speaker has a yellow and green jack, do I need a splitter or something and plug it into one of the ports on the card?
3.) Do I have to select which sound I want to use or will it automatically use the sound card's once I install the drivers? And how do I get that sound to play on the speakers?
4.) How do I hook it up to my headset? Do I just plug it into the headphone jack and I'm good to go?

This is a kind of offtopic question but my x11 headphones exhibit some static hissing noise while on but there is no sound playing. It gets annoying and I'm wondering if there are better headphones out there that I should get instead?

I heard the x12 is better, but these headphones are more designed for xbox right? Any good headphones better than the x11(for gaming) under $70?

Thanks so much for the help guys!!

 

[MagicPants]

You probably don't need a sound card. You should try the onboard sound for a while and see how it goes. The only reason you might want a sound card is if you get a hiss or hum from the onboard sound.

Also there is a very good chance that the onboard sound from an Asus mobo is better than a cheapo sig sound card.

 

[gamerk316]

First and foremost, if you are going to get a soundcard, at least get one thats decent. That card is horrible by any measureable standard. For the same price, you can get an ASUS Xonar DG or ASUS Xonar DS, which would be an actual upgrade over onboard...

now, for your specific questions:

1.) I'm putting 2 6950's in my motherboard. I'm guessing the cards will go in the dark blue and white sockets and the sound card will go in the black one?

For this soundcard, any PCI-E slot will do. Its recommended the GPU's use the highest bandwidth PCI-E slots, obviously. If you take my recommendations instead, any PCI slot will do.

2.) How will I hook the sound card up to my speakers? My speaker has a yellow and green jack, do I need a splitter or something and plug it into one of the ports on the card?

Yellow? Thats an unusual color, as yellow typically denotes an RCA analog video connection...green should be the hookup for front stereo though.

3.) Do I have to select which sound I want to use or will it automatically use the sound card's once I install the drivers? And how do I get that sound to play on the speakers?

You might have to set the soundcard as the default output device via the windows control panel.

4.) How do I hook it up to my headset? Do I just plug it into the headphone jack and I'm good to go?

Yep.