IL2 1946 & SoW Sound Cards v Onboard Chipsets

[Maxtor]

I have onboard sound that supports 5.1 & 7.1, I'm perfectly happy with it and have no qualms about IL2's sound.
(Realtek HD audio on an Asus board, the driver has lots of tweakability & compensation for speaker positions etc), I always build my computers to quite a high spec, but never bother with audio cards.
That said, I'm definitely no audiophile or sound aficionado