wa1, it seems to me you're doing just fine with motherboards. Regarding your last suggestion, the ASUS P6T, is a little pricey, but maybe I can overcome that.
rockyjohn, thanks for your input, too. Please give me your thoughts on the following:
1. The expansion slot specs for the P55M-UD4 describe the PCIE slots as follows: "2 (@x16 or @x8, x8)." Does this mean you can run them both at x16, or only at x8? (Why would anyone want to run them at x8?)
2. The P55A-UD3P ($160) appears to have only one PCIE 2.0 slot. Also, the review says, "you lose 8x lanes of your primary PCIe graphics interface" for GIGABYTE's USB3/SATA3 implementation.