I think a soundcard takes an INsignificant amount of process away from the CPU. it's used more so for a good surround sound speaker system. not many think "get a soundcard" when trying to improve gaming performance.
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That is due to most people not having a clue how computer hardware really works. Add to the fact that most of the top 10 games are video card bound, not CPU bound and you have a recipe for not caring about the sound card.
Aces High II is very CPU dependent, as any really good flight simulator should be. Even if we had top 10 game graphics, we would still be very dependent on the CPU.
A really good sound card can make a very significant difference in the way the game runs.