Should I sell Biostar TZ77XE3 to friend and buy AsRock Extreme6??

[triplefam]

READ ONLY BOLD PARTS IF PRESSED FOR TIME, SAYS EVERYTHING I NEED TO SAY BUT IN CONDENSED FORM. THANK YOU!!!


Reasons for upgrading from x58 to z77:
1) No matter what I try, I've never been able to get my x58 i7 920 stable past 3.6ghz with TRUE aircooler. (I know I could've went watercooling but it was out of my budget and interest back then, but I do intend to watercool for z77 CPU, eye is set on Corsair H80 or H100 self-contained watercooler). I intend to either get a 2700k or a 3770k. Thats not what I'm concerned about at the moment though, although I would appreciate advice.
2) I'm also tired of the USB 2 bottleneck for external drives..
3) ..as well as not having SATA III for my new SSD.
4) I have 6x 2GB sticks of RAM equalling 12gb in my x58 system. I had to fiddle with voltages in order to get it all properly recognized, and I heard that running 6 sticks of RAM is FAR less reliable than having say, 2 sticks of 8GB = 16GB, which I've already purchased for my new rig (DDR31600 2x8GB G.Skill Ripjaw)

Now here's the situation:

I purchased a Biostar TZ77XE3 (Newegg.com - BIOSTAR TZ77XE3 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS) as it was on sale for $70 new after rebates. Not one to just buy things TOO impulsively, I did a quick vet, reading reviews and making sure it had what I need. I wound up buying it, but now I'm starting to wish I took a little more time, as I have the following concerns and am thinking of selling the Biostar to a friend and picking up an AsRock Extreme6 Newegg.com - ASRock Z77 Extreme6 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard . Can anyone help set me straight here? I just have a few small questions....

1) Only 2 SATAIII ports? What might I wind up needing more SATAIII ports for? I currently have one SATAIII device, a 256GB SSD that I'm currently running SATAII on.
2) Only 2 USB3 on the back of Biostar vs. 4 on the back of AsRock. Same amount of board headers though. So... I hear you can buy a USB 2.0 hub feeding 10 devices on one plug. Is it possible to run a hub off USB 3.0 in the same fashion?
3) No onboard 1394 on Biostar. I'm going to be doing a lot of music production and my primary audio interface uses Firewire. Sure I could throw a PCI card in the Biostar for only $20 Newegg.com - Rosewill PCIE FireWire 1394a Card 2+1 Ports Model RC-504 but is a PCIE card for 1394 going to be as fast as 1394 direct into motherboard? And it takes up a PCI slot I might otherwise want to use...
4) From what it seems, Biostar has subpar customer support. Based on what I've seen, I can't decide how I feel about them: Are they manufacturers of cheap lazily designed boards just trying to kick out a profit, or are they really the overclocker's best friend as some people seem to say they are?!
5) The Biostar has a 13 phase power design vs. 8+4 on the AsRock. Whats the difference?



6) Considering all this, should I just run with the Biostar or spend $160 for, what I believe to be (unless I'm mistaken) a better board (AsRock Extreme6) with features that'll make me wish I bought the AsRock to begin with?



Are these features worth my trouble finding someone to sell to?

OR...

Am I blowing the need for additional SATA/USB/1394 ports out of proportion? Are Biostar boards as or more reliable than AsRock?



7 [optional]) 2700k vs 3770k for someone not planning on using onboard video but wanting a high overclock, not caring about PCI 3.0? Did I just answer my own question? Worth getting a 2700k over a 3770k with this in mind?


Your help will be much appreciated!! I'm stuck

 

[TheBigTroll]

id get a gigabyte z77x-d3h instead of a extreme6. sell that biostar if you are going to use more than the ports it provides

if you dont mind losing the ability to overclock, newegg sells a xeon e3 1230v2 for 240 bucks. its basically a i7 3770 but no intergrated graphics at the price of a i5

 

[triplefam]

id get a gigabyte z77x-d3h instead of a extreme6. sell that biostar if you are going to use more than the ports it provides

if you dont mind losing the ability to overclock, newegg sells a xeon e3 1230v2 for 240 bucks. its basically a i7 3770 but no intergrated graphics at the price of a i5

The Gigabyte looks nice, if I get a 1394 card PCIE card will it perform just as well as if I had it on the motherboard?

And I do want to be able to overclock - I want to watercool and get to 4.6-5.0ghz. That Xeon does look mighty tempting especially the price though I use a lot of audio plugins so I'll need as much CPU juice as possible.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention! Wasn't aware of the Xeon chip!

EDIT: While on the topic.. being that I want to overclock pretty high and I don't plan on using integrated video, should I be getting a 2700k, 2600k, or 3770k?

 

[TheBigTroll]

5.0ghz is not happening. ivy bridge just wont clock that high.

but really, is that 10-15% performance boost really worth the extra 80 bucks for the CPU and the entire watercooling loop? i dont think so, but if you think it is worth it, go ahead

a extra firewire card should perform the same.