Yes, TOSLINK is a godsend. It's immune to ground loops and motherboard manufacturers that don't give a shit, which is all of them, even ones that brand around having decent audio (ProArt I'm looking at you).
I have a different Asus motherboard and the audio hardware is on an apparently flaky USB bus (the motherboard has several, as they do). Even with an optical connection, the audio drops out sometimes. It was maddening to me when I first got the computer, because things like this are usually "not all the CPU pins connected to the motherboard" or "you know that RAM you bought on Amazon? yeah, it doesn't remember what you store in it! savings!". But... not this time. (I can pretty much kill USB on this machine by plugging in a bunch of unused USB cables; plugged into the computer, but nothing on the other end.)
I use an external DAC and I've learned which buses break USB when looked at the wrong way. But ... of course the on-board audio is just a USB device. Can't waste a PCIe lane on that!
This is for input but my lav mic is really quiet and has a pretty high noise floor and ground loop (not too bad tho) using the motherboard's 3.5mm port. Bought a USB sound "card" for 5.99 on Amazon a year back, it’s not even close. It’s output is mediocre at best but I don’t use that.