At home the soundcard is fed from the mixer subgroup outs (8).
At Barry's they are connected to a patchbay. Either works fine. Using both would seem redundant.
When doing vocals at home I often pull a cable from the mixer end and use a dedicated preamp instead, and when I do that it sits that way until I need all the mixer outs again. Taking a second to swap a cord to get the desired signal path isn't a waste of time in my eyes.

Less devices in the signal path = less noise and often a cleaner, clearer signal.

I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!