H67 Motherboard

For your application I would say the Intel board. The Asus board might have more tweaking possibilities but you are after stability!

I would recommend the ASUS P8H67 M LE - Intel make horrible MOBOs - great CPUs - oopsy Chipsets.

Intel makes the chipset for the Asus board correct?

Yes, my point was the recent H67/P67 fiasco. -- I meant the chipset as a joke.

However, Intel MOBO are frequent visitors here in relation to their 'MOBO units sold'. If you've seen Intel MOBOs one up close then you KNOW they're built cheap...plus filled with caveats and bizarre limitations.

I totally agree on the limitations and will never recommend an Intel board to an enthusiast who wants to to start tweaking settings and overclock. Most posts here on Intel boards are about those the boards on the other hand are stable and problem free if left at defaults.

You've posted here longer than me, and you know exactly what I'm saying. In my office I could have easily gone with Intel MOBOs and possibly saved a few bucks on the X58's. I didn't because there's no 'upside' on cheap. Durability was/is my goal. ASUS are the best of the imperfect MOBOs.

I recall some OP with 50+ bad Intel MOBO builds across multiple departments {the problem I spotted was not understanding QVL RAM - buying single vs Matched RAM}. I too have seen plenty bad Intel MOBOs. Stuff/review like this -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... Clearly, the more expensive lines are better, but their basic & less expensive MOBO's are lack luster if not simply bad. There's ASUS, GA, EVGA, you name it that are simply bad as well. Read the reviews before buying anything, and read through the dumb stuff.

Bottom-line, it's the cheap and too basic that makes my red-light on Intel. I 'get' what you're saying and I know you 'get' what I'm saying.