- Dec 12, 2001
- 27,052
- 357
- 126
I am gathering info before I purchase parts for an Ivy build this weekend for myself around a z77 motherboard.
I am looking for options for my somewhat unique situation. First I have a mechanical keyboard. Should I be concerned with the lack of a PS/2 port on some motherboards and losing N-Key rollover? Second, I use an XFI soundcard on PCI. I know PCI is pretty much dead, but I play some older games that require Creative Alchemy to enable the surround sound effects via EAX. Short of buying a new soundcard for PCIe what options do I have? I understand that some boards have PCI slots but is there a downside to using these? I mean is it native to the z77 chip or some sort of bridge that is slow and not worth using?
I thought about going with the Asus Maximus V Gene since it's on board audio is an XFI chip and would eliminate my concern there, but Noctua says their NH D-14 heatsink(which I am going to be using) might have clearance issues with video cards due to the tight layout of the board. So I'm looking at other potential options. The Asus P8z77 boards look like they'd work for me (a couple of them have PS/2 and PCI slots) but I'm not sure if using regular PCI slots on the z77 boards is going to have some sort of downside like a compatibility issue or bottleneck of some type.
Is the general consensus going to be to just ditch the XFI card and use the on-board audio and not worry about it at all?
I am looking for options for my somewhat unique situation. First I have a mechanical keyboard. Should I be concerned with the lack of a PS/2 port on some motherboards and losing N-Key rollover? Second, I use an XFI soundcard on PCI. I know PCI is pretty much dead, but I play some older games that require Creative Alchemy to enable the surround sound effects via EAX. Short of buying a new soundcard for PCIe what options do I have? I understand that some boards have PCI slots but is there a downside to using these? I mean is it native to the z77 chip or some sort of bridge that is slow and not worth using?
I thought about going with the Asus Maximus V Gene since it's on board audio is an XFI chip and would eliminate my concern there, but Noctua says their NH D-14 heatsink(which I am going to be using) might have clearance issues with video cards due to the tight layout of the board. So I'm looking at other potential options. The Asus P8z77 boards look like they'd work for me (a couple of them have PS/2 and PCI slots) but I'm not sure if using regular PCI slots on the z77 boards is going to have some sort of downside like a compatibility issue or bottleneck of some type.
Is the general consensus going to be to just ditch the XFI card and use the on-board audio and not worry about it at all?
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