ASUS P8P67 vs MSI P67A-GD53 vs Gigabyte P67A-UD3P

[gjtbackwards]

I plan to assemble parts for a new (and much overdue) desktop in the next month or so, and will base it on the i5-2500K CPU, but am having a heck of a time figuring out the differences between all the mobo options out there.

I can get a decent deal on the 2500K bundled with one of these boards, but don't really know which is best (for their respective prices). I'm always trying out the newest games and would love to increase the graphics beyond the piss-poor levels I'm used to, as well as doing some very light CAD, typical surfing and MS Office work... and in the future will try my hand at overclocking (I hear the SB chips OC very nicely/easily) and possibly crossfire two Radeon 6850 GPUs.

Which would you buy, and why?

 

[rolli59]

I would go with the Asus because it is cheapest! (the MSI is the only one that will crossfire at X8 X8)

 

[jaquith]

The ASUS P8P67 is okay, and the MIS P67A-GD53 (B3) is the only SLI/CF with x8/x8 and the others are not ideally suited for optimized CF/SLI.

As of hours ago, the ASRock is back online e.g. ASRock P67 EXTREME4, but I tend to recommend the ASUS P8P67 PRO as the cheapest good x8/x8. Gripes are limited not so much to the MOBO but customer service. ASUS sells 10:1 of most companies...I judge a board on it's merits.

Side-by-Side http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007627&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&CompareItemList=280|13-131-705^13-131-705-TS%2C13-128-477^13-128-477-TS

ASUS P8P67 http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=Qx3PdnZI9Pq9BcIU
Gigabyte P67A-UD3P http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3763#sp
MSI P67A-GD53 http://us.msi.com/index.php?func=prodmbspec&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=&cat3_no=&prod_no=2072#menu