Long answer: Depends on what you're planning to do and how good you want your recordings to sound. Creatives cards is mostly for gamers, and doesen't really deliver what they promise on the box. If you're planning to use some softsynths and realtime effects, I would say "forget about it".
I started with a SB16, moved over to SB Live! and Audigy. In the end the limitations and the bad drivers made get rid of the card.