I have a mother board that has that on-audio chip. It's actually not that bad at all, but if you are a heavy gammer, and have EAX games, go with the Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer. The Audigy will use far less CPU resource if you've turned on EAX in game then the on board and supports EAX ver 3 and maybe 4. I notice an improvement in UT2k4 from going from this onboard to Audigy Gamer (I have since moved up to Audigy 2 ZS).
Now for the serious music, you want to loot any soundcard based off of the
VIA’s Envy24HT chipset, like the M-Audio Revolution. It plays back sound better then most cards but does not hand EAX that well (it works).