Dude playing songs is better on a 2.1 setup, simply because even Stereoscopic sound has not gone to the level that all 4 ( sub driver channels apart from woofer ), are able to give you a distinct sound ( except if you are speaking of High end speakers like BOSE, Logitech Z series, Creative Gigaworks series ) all the mentioned setups are going to setback the OP by about 15K minimum and I don't think that is his point, + OP has specifically mentioned gaming rig, not HTPC setup so he won't feel the loss of the extra 3 channels in my view, this is just my Point Of View,
Also the cheaper Creative T6100 and similar speaker systems start jarring after their volume is pumped up beyond 50%
Also the cheaper Creative T6100 and similar speaker systems start jarring after their volume is pumped up beyond 50%