How to run Sound from my computer to Receiver / Sorround Sound Setup

yes and no; a 52" inch 1080p HDTV is in the chain, but it's not used for the computer. It's instead used for our PS3 and Wii gaming / Television, DVD, and BluRay watching. Consumer HDTV's, as nice as they are, still dont have the amazing refresh rates, higher resolution capabilities, and all around quality of a monitor. Although they are starting to get a lot better as of late, they're still not just yet on par with a decent monitor.
Instead the computer is attached to its own three 24" inch monitors in "eyefinity" mode; ATI / AMD's multi-monitor setup that runs the computers display across all three monitors at once for an amazing 5760x1200 resolution, or 5802x1200 with bezel compensation, that windows and games effectively recognize as one massive monitor and not 3. It makes games alot more emersive and can give you and advantage in online FPS games, but it requires alot of graphic horsepower to run at a decent resolution. Luckily my current $1600 of video cards, (not computer just video cards, computer is around 5000 or 6000), handle it until i upgrade next year. Also my Tritton 5.1 PC gaming headphones, that have 8 speaker in each can, aka earcup, so I can play my games low key or late at night or if the woman is watching a something on the TV or listening to the radio.
So if the receiver is off I still have sound via the headphones or my tiny little 5.1 Logitech computer surround sound speakers around my desk. I just simply make two clicks and change my computer sound device to output through the on-board soundcard, or it does this on its own when I connect headphones to the front panel HD audio connectors on my case.
Sorry for the long reply, as I have said before on my previous thread posts; Im a computer guy, I build my own and my fair share for other people as well, who is a total Noob to the whole home theater / audio world, but Im here to learn.
Thanks for your help. Just to be safe; HDMI straight to the receiver is the way to go and not toslink or analog cables?
I am looking for the best sound quality possible from my setup.

thanks kawizx9r, that was exactly what i needed to know about the sound output. As for the monitor I love it as well, my only problem with it was that I ordered 3 of them and 2 each had a green stuck pixel on them, but i sent them back and the replacements have been fine. They work great for multi monitor setups bc of the relatively small bezel and i love the picture they put out once you fine tune them a little, they get bright as all hell if you turn up the brightness.

I would like to send a huge thank you to everyone who replied. I am going to run the sound through an HDMI cable from my video card in to my receiver; thanks to the advice i received here. To be honest, I posted this question here and on my video card's forum and you guys answered my question more in depth and a lot faster than anyone over there on the computer side did. I still haven't got one reply in 2 days on that side, even when i emailed the manufacturer of my video cards to ask them what the sound output quality was for my model of GPU would be, which keep in mind I paid over $1500 for (2 in quadfire, effectivley 4 video cards running together as each one has two graphics processing unit(s) on its one board). You would think they would help someone who spends so much on such a simple part of their computer build, especially when I not only bought their top of the line, most expensive model, I bought two of them for my one main gaming computer. HAHA.
{+5 polk audio forum / home audio guys = -5 ati video card forum / computer guys}
You guys have been such a help on this forum. Every question I have asked on this forum so far has been answered promptly and, just as importantly, correctly. I wish there was some way to review a forum or give you guys props because as a total home audio noob I have learned more from my two forum posts here then I was able to by searching through numerous product manuals and google-ing my brain to mush. And to top it all off none of you made me feel like a moron for asking questions and trying to learn about my setup the way people did when I started getting into computers 10 years ago as a kid, and i still see happening on my other pc forums and hardware sites.

So once again, thank you, thank you, thank you, and thaaaaaank you.