I'm looking to be building my first PC and the motherboard is the most daunting item so far.

My goal is to put together a high end PC for moderate gaming, graphic design and video editing.

Any help would be really appreciated - some basic criteria :

1. simplicity / reliability. I have to admit i don't know much about installing BIOS chips and whatnot, so the less I have to adjust, tweak, or fix up the better.

2. Supporting Intel Core 2 e6750

3. Overclocking is not a real issue

4. DDR2 800 (seemed fairly standard on most of the mobos I looked at). I just can't afford enough DDR3.

5. SLI is not important, though obviously I would want support for a GPU (probably an 8800gts 640mb)

6. I was thinking of going for the p35 chipset since I have no plans of going SLI - any thoughts?

Thanks!

ASUS P5K-E
GIGABYTE P35 DS3R
ABIT IP35PRO

are one the best P35 boards

thanks Maziar!

I'd already been looking over the IP35 pro quite a bit - mostly because of the number of positive reviews it received on newegg. is there anything in particular distinguishing the GA p35 from the p35c?

I recommend ASUS P5K-E and GIGABYTE P35 DS3R(These boards support only DDR2) over ASUS P5KC and GIGAYBTE P35C DS3R (These boards support DDR2 and DDR3)
Why ?

1_The DDR3 option of P5KC and P35C DS3R is limited to 4GB ,but the DDR2 option is limited to 8GB, so i dont think the DDR2 option will become useful

2_P5K-E and P35 DS3R OC better than P5KC and P35C DS3R

For a newbie like yourself I highly recommend sideskirting ALL 3rd party boards and going straight to Intel for your Intel motherboard. If you want no hassles, reliability, and brain-dead simplicity, get an Intel-branded board.