I need of a motherboard. Which one?

[Maxert]

Building my first build.
I thought choosing GPU or CPU would give me a headache and I used to think Motherboard is nothing but compatible part that joins other components... but I was wrong. Motherboard choosing is taking most of my time now...


First of all I might go for either a Sandy Bridge or an Ivy Bridge CPU. Idk if z77 is a waste if I'm going for a sandy bridge.


I need a motherboard,
-Planning to overclock after couple months/years (when I feel comfortable)
- NOT going to sli/crossfire
-USB 3.0, is it really necessary? I don't have any device that uses USB 3.0. and why does it matter if it's intel controller or asmedia controller?


Lastly, this thing is hard to decide on which motherboard to get:

Need a motherboard which can handle Load...
- I am a PC user who uses a PC for maybe 8-12 hours a day.
-I do graphic design, lots of 18 megapixel pictures editing, FULL HD video editing... (I know RAM and CPU matters in these things)
- Since it's not a workstation card, I will be turning my PC on OVERNIGHT to let my 3D animation render... could take more than 20 hours to finish some projects. Which means, leaving the PC on and let the projects Render.


What motherboard would you suggest I get.
I have my eyes on,
AsRock Z77 Extreme 4, MSI GD-55, Asus SaberTooth (I can get this one for $210)

is this philosophy correct:
Any motherboard costing $150 or higher would last you more than 5 years ATLEAST.
Someone told me this, so Can I blindly choose a motherboard and have faith that it'll handle the load I will put to it?


Thanks Guys.!

 

[smorizio]

price of a mb or part today means little when all of them are made overseas. the asus sabertooth is a board i have it made for overclocking and gaming. it alos has a nice thermal armor profile if you use air fans to keep it quite. the gigabyte ud3 and it biggger brother the ud5 have gotten awards from other over clocking web pages. also msi make good mb too. what you have to look at when you look at mb are people having issues with x model of mb..are there a lot of doa or do they have to jump over a hoop or get another cpu to flash a bios to there new cpu works. if the mb dies what the vendor warranty on it and how easy is it to get a replacement. the usb 3.0 is for usb stick and storage devices that are hitting the market now. they can move data faster then the older ports. there not much if it intel or a thrid party chipset other then max speed of said port. (i think tom did a test between intel and another chipset vendor). the other issue is it using intel chipset and your ports dies...it the chipset on the mb that failed. i been seing on micro center web page the ib chip have been cheaper then the sb chips on new egg.
as your a power user i would send the extra money on a case with good cooling...look at the ones tom just did a round up on.
you want fans on the top and one on the bottom for push-pull. also spend the money on a good brand name power supply. look into one with active fan. on new power supply with this feature the fan will not spin till the load and temps hit a set point then the fan will spin. i would look into a h80 cooler for the cpu and a ssd to speed up your system. as your doing larger render i would put in two 4 gig kits so that both dim channels are running two channel mode. on the asus mb i dont know if it an ib or sb feature but i has under video setting in the owners guild that in can render video while in stand by. i dont know if it a feature just to this mb and it works i would post on asus rog forum under non rog mb and ask.

 

[hellfire24]

gigabyte Z77x-UD5H is a great motherboard for it's price.solid overclocker,solid build quality and a very good board IMO,for $190 it is a great value too-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128545

 

[Maxert]

price of a mb or part today means little when all of them are made overseas. the asus sabertooth is a board i have it made for overclocking and gaming. it alos has a nice thermal armor profile if you use air fans to keep it quite. the gigabyte ud3 and it biggger brother the ud5 have gotten awards from other over clocking web pages. also msi make good mb too. what you have to look at when you look at mb are people having issues with x model of mb..are there a lot of doa or do they have to jump over a hoop or get another cpu to flash a bios to there new cpu works. if the mb dies what the vendor warranty on it and how easy is it to get a replacement. the usb 3.0 is for usb stick and storage devices that are hitting the market now. they can move data faster then the older ports. there not much if it intel or a thrid party chipset other then max speed of said port. (i think tom did a test between intel and another chipset vendor). the other issue is it using intel chipset and your ports dies...it the chipset on the mb that failed. i been seing on micro center web page the ib chip have been cheaper then the sb chips on new egg.
as your a power user i would send the extra money on a case with good cooling...look at the ones tom just did a round up on.
you want fans on the top and one on the bottom for push-pull. also spend the money on a good brand name power supply. look into one with active fan. on new power supply with this feature the fan will not spin till the load and temps hit a set point then the fan will spin. i would look into a h80 cooler for the cpu and a ssd to speed up your system. as your doing larger render i would put in two 4 gig kits so that both dim channels are running two channel mode. on the asus mb i dont know if it an ib or sb feature but i has under video setting in the owners guild that in can render video while in stand by. i dont know if it a feature just to this mb and it works i would post on asus rog forum under non rog mb and ask.

That was a good read. Thanks. Lots of information and love the additional suggestion you made. Yes i'm definitely going after 4gb x 2 slot rams running each at 1600 mhz.
I'm cheaping out on cpu cooler and SSD. I might just be using air cooler cuz the most I can affort is H60 if I were to water cool, and i believe high end air coolers are much better than that.

I already got an H2 for my build from NZXT.
2 fan front intake running at 1200 rpm
1 Bottom in Take 1200 rpm

1 rear exhaust 1800 rpm and 1 top exhaust 1800 rpm.
I don't mind maxing all these rpm to their max state. I can sacrifice sound for quality.

The reason I'm cheaping out on SSD, cuz I don't mind waiting for things to load up to the ram. Unless SSD makes a difference while working inside a software (which I doubt it does much).

Btw, thanks again! I will definitely consider what you have said.

 

[smorizio]

i have the intel 520 ssd 128g they now have the intel 330 that almost as fast and it 124.00 on new egg. with windows 8 and my ib 3540 and eight gig of ram it takes less then 20 sec from cold boot to get into windows. if i had photo shop or word it would be opening almost instant and if i was rendering photos the ssd would be speeding up the program. my old system was a 775 with a 6g 7200 rpm drive and i can tell you the ssd does speed up windows.