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The board itself is using a shielded and isolated design on the circuit board itself as well as the "over card" shielding. The real magic though is in the PCB design and the signal routing and shielding that takes place in the board.
This card was built with a rather rigorous spec for shielding and isolation from the noise you mention above and performs better than a pretty massive amount of desktop amps for output...especially at the price point.
This "hum" in almost every case will not be an issue with our ZxR card. We've designed with motherboard inadequacies and power supply inadequacies in mind. We're an audio company first...not a "components" one like those making "sound cards" as a side business. There's a lot going on with the design and circuitry of the ZxR card, especially since we had to design with the fact that we have an onboard processor (which itself if not designed for correctly could introduce noise) versus a simple codec that relies on CPU power for audio processing. (like in the STX).
Sure you might find a nightmare configuration that creates an unavoidable noise source, but the vast majority of PC's that are being put together by people willing to spend $100+ on a sound card are not going to be using inferior hardware that will generate these issues.
The shielding above the board does make a difference depending on the configuration. With various curve balls being adding to systems nowadays (LED lighting, larger fans, etc) you want to take advantage of every place you can avoid potential signal noise introduction. Especially when you are pushing into the critically high ranges of dB SnR.
Again, more useful in some situations than others, but to say flat out it doesn't make a difference is a very broad statement that is somewhat misleading.
I will say that when it is working the ZxR is absolutely fantastic. I don't usually use headphones but use a Z906 speaker set via analog and the difference between onboard sound and the ZxR is transformational. I've had it for a few years now and love it. Great for movies but really good for music.