Better yet, what kind of games do you really play?
Last time I checked, you need to have 5.1+ to really take advantage of EAX whatever. That does not bode well with the FACT that most if not all "multimedia speakers" are generally craptastic and it costs money to build a quality 5.1 setup.
To speak for myself, I no longer play FPS as I started playing more MMORPG and visual novels/2d fighters. For such genre, quality 2.0 or 2.1 is miles ahead of any EAX-friendly crappola, so to say EAX rules gaming is a blanket statement implying all gamers play FPS games and nothing else.
I did put in an order for an open box m200s from newegg just recently, and expecting them soon (hopefully tomorrow), which are going to replace my midiland s2-4100s. The midilands were incomparably superior to my roomate's klispch promedias - a very popular model here which sometimes gets worhipped to become the holy grail for the speakers, yet inadequate for music listening.
Ideally, I wish I could be free from financial concerns so I could go all out and buy one of those martin logan speakers and whatnot and place it in a properly constructed music listening room. Alas, a poor incomeless college student I am, and I am pretty happy with headphones. Sure my rig does cost times more than an average multimedia speaker set, but it was well worth down to every penny; I never had a better music listening experience elsewhere.
My point is, that with typical sub-promedia level speakers it may well be true that sound cards do not have much appreciable benefit at all. While we are at it, I strongly urge to you join head-fi and start investing in headphones if you havnt already. So I say, headphones FTW
That being said, I will just throw out some names for the sound cards that excel in music so it could serve as a departing point. If interested, read on at some other audio-related forums.
For limited budget, av-710 is known to be a decent source for its price. if you are considering a non-usb DAC, this would be something you might wanna look into. I am using it on my secondary rig and quite pleased with it.
Philips aurilium also has a pretty good rep for what it goes for, especially when philips had some massive price cuts from their online store.
EMU 1212M, ESI Juil@ and Audiophile 192 - these are the cards I consider sweetspot for analog music playback. I personally have a heavily modded 1212M.
In the next price bracket you have RME Hammerfall DSP, but at this point I assume going with an external DAC would be a wiser choice. DACs range from inexpensive entech number cruncher to bel cantos, but zhalou used to be the flavor of the month when I last visited head-fi.
I believe the most expensive card you could get is Lynx-II, but I keep hearing its sonic signature is on a sterile and cold side - not exactly what I would go for.
Hope this helps.