Does it still matter nowaday (2007) that it is better to use a PCI Audigy 2 sound card than the on board audio?

I am planning to get a stock ASUS P5K motherboard.

It seems that the on board audio has a whole lot more features than the Audigy 2 that I am using.

 

Well the audigy 2 was never a really good card in the first place, but I have the platnum version and still use it rather than the onboard audio of my DFI P35 board.
The DFI board has realtek 8ch high def audio and I can't really hear a quality difference between the two. I find the real key is that some games support the proprietary
creative surround sound stuff, and it's nice to have a creative card for that. Also the audigy being a older chipset seems to make it jive with linux a little easier.

 

^ Yeah I have Audigy 2 platinum as well. The on board sound on my mobo wasn't bad and also seemed to have more features than the card. But I just like having a stand alone sound card. Sound wise they both sounded about the same to me.

 

reason I ask is motherboard nowaday doesn't have much space to plug too many pci cards. The pci-e slot for the video card takes up alot of space.