So many options! How do I choose?

SyntaxSocialist

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Jan 20, 2013
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Choosing a motherboard for my first gaming build is turning out to be a lot more difficult than I thought it would be! I'm in Canada, so I'm using newegg.ca as my benchmark for available products. They seem to have the widest selection, and a decent representation of prices, but once I've picked the product I intend to shop around for deals.

Problem is, even after I've determined that I want LGA 1155 support (for an i5-3350P or 3570), USB 3.0 support, and DDR3 1600 support, there are still dozens of options!

I'm hoping that you lovely folks here can give me some advice on how to narrow down my choices.
1. I haven't got a clue about what to look for in a chipset
2. I want to get a sense of just how much I should be budgeting for my mobo.
3. Should I be sticking to motherboards of specific brands? I know Gigabyte and Asus are good...

- I'm working on a budget of about $1000 (hopefully less) before monitor and peripherals.
- I want to use the system for fairly high-end gaming. Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinite, and Witcher 3 are among my list of future game purchases (I am looking at buying a Radeon HD 7800 series or 7900 series video card).
- I don't think I need SLI or Crossfire, but I wouldn't mind if I had it. My thinking is that my usage will tolerate a single high-quality video card just fine, and if I decide I really want SLI or Crossfire, I can include them in a future build.
- I don't intend to overclock (at least not for a few years).
- 8GB of RAM should be plenty

What are people's thoughts?