Gaming motherboards

In reality there is no such thing as a 'gaming motherboard' If you want one beefy GPU and not looking for record clocks any half decent board would suffice In fact that would be my point of origin: decide what resolution/settings to game on, select GPU/80+ PSU and work backwards for best results for a gaming rig

Just look on here. Tom's has some threads and articles on what you can do with a set budget. $1200 will get you a very good system. $700 will get you by for most games.

Hi Rob, if you can post according to this thread, it'll be a lot easier for forum members to suggest a build most suited for you.

Hi  
I just build a gaming desktop (imo of course) bout 2 months ago. I bought all my stuff off newegg and they have all the specs, customer reviews help too - so I love that site.
Really, it all comes down to your own preference. I take other people's opinions but I ended up going with my own and loved it. I'll list my components that I chose below.

Mobo: MSi 790x-g45 (has no video on board but 2 slots of PCI-e and running x16 on both so I chose that because it's perfect for crossfire)

RAM: G.Skill 4gb 1600 (aw, the price went down! lol) I read on the review of the motherboard that a lot of people went with 1600 and it was stable. I built 2 desktops with the same motherboard but the other sticks of RAM I bought was: A-Data 1600 4gb - They both work great!

CPU: I have Phenom x4 965 Black Edition on one, 945 in the other.
-- I bought my mobo & cpu together, a combo off ebay and it's much cheaper than getting it individually. It all depends on what cpu you want but I found the combo and saved a couple bucks.

PSU: 650w on both. I like ones with an on/off switch.. save me from turning off the surge protector entirely to save on electric bills  

GPU: 4850, works great. Played movies, Mafia II.. no problems. I love this card very much. I want a 4870 but I've already got 2 of this so perhaps for the next built.

The other components like dvd-rom & hard drives are pretty common and way too many choices so those are pretty easy to pick out.
These 2 builts were my first and I've never built any ever in my life so it was exciting picking out parts and going with what I want within my budget..etc. I hope you have fun as well picking yours out.  

Not to nitpick but the 790X is x16 when a single GPU is used but 8/8 in CF with 2 GPUs   Irrelevant for the most part since on PCIex16 gen 2.0 the impact is almost nil hehe

Hmm.. I'm getting my info wrong on it then. I haven't actually got the chance to try crossfiring yet because the 4850 can handle a lot by itself. It doesn't mention on Newegg about it and I thought I read on the site that it was x16 on both. Sorry. Thanks for the correction.