Which of these two Motherboards is best for this build?

That's a close call; check the ports and slots carefully to decide; either board may require a bios flash to run the 8350; it's luck of the draw with newer cpus and older motherboards. I use a sempron 140 to flash for newer am3+ cpus.

Thanks for the reply updating the BIOS is going to be a nightmare for me since its my first pc build, I've looked at supported CPU's on both and it seems that both of them support the 8350 and have downloads for an updated BIOS.

Either board is a toss up, feature-wise. Like o1die suggested, look at the ports and slots to see which fit your needs best.

Regarding the BIOs, I looked both up on the manufacturers websites. The Asus will definitely support the 8350 out of the box. The Asrock may or may not support the 8350, depending on what version of the bios it shipped with. To me, this tips the scale towards the Asus board.

1_asus AMD motherboards are ECC memory compatible ,
you may use them in any kind of computer :Be it a file server ,
a file storage computer, a workstation or a gaming PC.
So , Buy asus , you may re- use later this motherboard
... with Ecc memory or not , Overclocking or not.
The ECC bring a lot of possibilities to you.


2_The motherboard should have radiators around the cpu ,
especially , if you think of Overclocking and/or Gaming
because the gpu , AMD HD7850 will bring some heat ,
and your computer may become too hot ...
Moreover , your motherboard will last longer with radiators on it
and some fan to blow some air on it.
Alas the asus M5A97LE R2.0 does not have radiators...
you may pick another , especially , if you don't buy the ssd ...

Ahh, well I defintely won't be overclocking it but I will be playing/developing games on it. I'm pretty lost when it comes to motherboards even after research.

Could someone recommend me a decent priced one that could handle my specs and doesn't need any BIOS updates?

Developing Software for Game and other animated 3D ?  

You may ask that software publisher of yours :


  -> what CPU / Memory are usefull ?

? 2 cores or 8 , Windows 64bit and a lot of memory maybe ?

How can we help ... ,we don't know your software and we can't tell
exactly what to do unless you look for the "minimum hardware" ... no ?

Let us know your results anyway.

The ssd may be usefull after all for 3D animation , not for gaming.

As for reliability , you may look at motherboard on Newegg.com : each motherboard
receive "eggs" , from 5 to 1 , it becomes easy to spot the bad from the good.
you ' ll find good asus , bad asus and many other , it doesn't matter , if you can't
buy from them , it's the "egg" rating that matters , you know nothing about PC ?
Newegg will help you choose ...

There is one serious brand for professional : supermicro or tyan .
These are "Workstation" and "Server" motherboards . Cost a lot but reliable...

 

Sorry I should have explained more, I’m on a game development course at university, I’ve got more of a focus on coding so I want it to compile fast but I do touch on other areas such as modelling/3d animation. So I don't want a super expensive motherboard, I just want something that will house my spec, have atleast 4 USBs and isn't ridiculously expensive. The SSD is for the OS and faster code compiling.

I will be working with Unreal Engine 4 when it comes out and that is pretty high spec.

Thanks for the thing about Newegg.com I will look at that now.

_One more thing , Amd is selling DDRAM III "aka" Double Data Random Access Memory

for its motherboards , and as a way to gain some "weight" in that business ,

they offer a "Ram Disk" software :

.That thing uses the extra memory your OS don't need (for exemple : 8+8 go = 16 go

your 32 bit OS will use 3,5 go of it , what is left +/- 12 go can be used

as a super fast Hard Disk Drive , a "Disk" made of "Ram" , faster and less troublesome

than many ssd.

Software -> smaller version is free , the 64go cost 19 $

http://www.radeonmemory.com/software_xtreme.php

Just keep in mind ram "disk" is prone to power outage.......

if maui67 said about out of box compatibility true, then it will save lot's of troubles.......

I'll go with ASUS ones...

About O.C. the board and proc definitely capable for O.C....

u may not know how to do it, but maybe there some friends that capable to do it for u  

I've looked at a processor/motherboard bundle which uses the Gigabyte 970A-DS3 USB3 ATX motherboard, is this something I should desperately avoid or should I go for it? Baring in mind my CPU and GPU are going to throw out quite a lot of heat.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ADMI-FX-8350-Vishera-Core-4-0GH...

Motherboard specs:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/motherboa...