In my opinion, if you wish to use a Sound Blaster 16, use only the following models:

CT-1740 Sound Blaster 16
CT-1750 Sound Blaster 16 MCD
CT-1770 Sound Blaster 16 SCSI-2

There are many, many more models of Sound Blaster 16s, but stay away from anything that begins with CT-2xxx; CT-3xxx; CT-4xxx or CT-5xxx (I don't believe any Sound Blaster 16s were CT-3xxx or CT-5xxx models, but I cannot be sure.) There are some other CT-1xxx models around, usually early OEM products, and they may be suitable.

The above listed models are the three original Sound Blaster 16 models. The later cards are usually OEM junk or value products. Some lack the full featured mixer of the original 16s, some don't really do 16-bit DMA transfers; but all lack a true OPL3 chip. Even the cards with a chip marked "Creative OPL" aren't really outputting real FM synthesis, as this post from NewRisingSun explains:

Well, as I wrote before, I'm using the word "emulate" in a broad sense. Having read the thread you linked to carefully, it seems that the "Creative OPL" chip uses "Creative Quadrature Modulation", patented by Creative(5,900,570 and 6,091,269), to produce an output from FM register writes that sounds mostly like the real YMF262 output. I call that "emulation in hardware", because the "Creative OPL" uses different technology to function like the original Yamaha chip. If you want to call this something other than "emulation", go ahead.
This applies BOTH to the non-SB32 AWE32 and AWE64, according to your first link, basically to anything that uses AWEUTIL /S to initialize the FM, I would assume.

In short, that quote also says that any AWE or AWE based board will not have a true OPL chip. If accurate FM synthesis means anything, if you are using a Sound Blaster, stick with the early Sound Blaster 16s.