I would ignore Shaun_Shaun. Not being rude, but if you want to get into professional Audio buying an Audiophile card is an lesson in stupidity.
Just so you know, I produce for a living so I will be somewhat biased.
Why goes something like this. Having the best 'sounding' sound is not what you want, having the most accurate sound is. When you make a track that sounds great on your system then take it to your friends/label A+R/potential clients system etc you'll understand why. And 'Audiophile card' adds tot eh mix, coloring the sound and making it sound unlike the actual waves you're working on inside your PC, this makes you make bad decisions. For a simple example you could mix a track with too little bass because your card boosts bass and you EQ down the bass in your mix to compensate.
If you want to produce I suggest getting an Audio Interface, not a sound card. They are not hugely expensive, but most come as external units due to the considerations that have to be made when making this Mac compatible (due to Logic and Digital Performers large user base this is a big consideration). You look for 'reference' sound, clear and untouched at the output stages. You also want a pair of studio monitors. 5 inches is fine for someone starting out, but I'll recommend Rokit 6's to a newb with the intention of upgrading when you decide it's worth the investment as they are great for truly "opening your ears". (They sound awesome when you first buy them but after a few months you start to listen to a lot more details in your mix and start being able to pick faults in your music as you get used to them)
May I recommend Focusrite Saffire 6 for the budding noob or Echo Audiofire for the guy who wants a 2 track out that he will still be coming back to the day he can justify a $30000 Pro Tools rig.
As for why not to use a cheaper soundcard there are a huge array of reasons. First one is quality, but that is self explanatory. Second is noise. Noise is a big one. All $30 cards and integrated ones have huge amounts of electrical noise in the background. This distorts the sound coming out in everything you play them out of. When you get to the stage where you have decent monitors, they will hiss like a mutha--ker too. The hiss adds all kinds of crazy problems to your sound Phase Issues, Nyquist crushing, hard saturation, small degrees of digital distortion and color. It's not even subtle when you hear the difference between them and even a simple Lexicon Omega (which is what I would buy if I was severely finance limited).
If all else fails, the only internal card I can say is usable is the old Black with gold parts full size PCI Creative X-Fi Units. They have Burr Brown converters and are actually waaaay too much bang for their buck but finding them would be extremely hard now and I heard they had issues with drivers on Vista (probably fixed now).
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