Pulling hair out: Motherboard choices.

Nothing is futureproof.
From what you say sounds like 975X is your best option.

Ya know, I am currently suffering from the same predicament. I am aiming to get my new system after my next pay cheque (beginning of march), though I currently already have a few bits for it, those being:

Jeantech Aqua V3 case
Jeantech Storm 700W PSU
C2D E6600
3 Gigs OCZ PC6400 DDR2 Platinum modules
Thermaltake blue orb 2 (yes my entire system is going to glow blue after this build hehe)

But now I find myself unable to pick a motherboard, like you I dont want to be building a new system for another 2 to 3 years (need to pay loans off and buy a new house so, this is it for a while), so has to be fairly future proof, and I also want to overclock it to around the 3GHz to 3.5GHz mark.

Think I've also decided on an 8800 GTX which can be got for just over 300 quid now, which is cool...

The motherboard though eludes me, the 965 chipset is newer, yet is not as good apparently as the older 975x, the 680i, is really too expensive, and only for SLI based systems (which i dont see the point in unless you're rich).

I've been looking at the major players such as gigabyte and asus, like the sounds of the P5W DH though it seems almost an after thought for C2D, and lacks certain things like a lot of USB ports and SATA ports. Then there's the P5B range which seem ok again, but after looking at the DS4 (btw i do like lots of toys on the motherboard, so things like good audio and firewire are always a nice choice for me) I like the solid caps etc, however I cant find the rev 2's of that board (want the later audio chipset ya see), and I've heard the IDE PATA support is dodgy, and the pci express slots are limited to 16x and 4x.... Seems to me there's disadvantages with almost every board I look at. Never had this much trouble picking a motherboard out before, and as you can see the rest of the system has been a doddle to pick in comparison to this.

So here's hoping this thread gets a lot of replies!!

It's not like I have $$ to burn, but every 4 years I build I new computer with what's currently state of the art, so I don't need to upgrade in a year. I'm still on a 3.0 GHz P4 and AGP, so it's time to pay to play.

I quess I meant that I wanted a MB that's able to handle the upcoming Penryn chip, with 1333 FSB but that's been delayed till 08. The problem is the 680i scares me with all of the negitive reviews, so I'm forced to go 1066 FSB if I want a MB today.

As far as boards go, for me, at least, Asus has the most thoughtful layout, which counts for a lot.