Need help picking a motherboard

Hi everyone, I have a question regarding my motherboard selection

So, here was my previous setup:

-CORSAIR Corsair 500W Builder Series

-VGA ATI XFX HD5750 700M 1GB DDR5, HDMI, 2xDVI, DisplayPort, DirectX 11

-AMD BOX Processor Intel Core 2 Quad, LGA 1366, 3000 MHz clock speed, 2 MB L2 cache, 6 MB L3 cache, 4000 MHz BUS, Intel Nehalem, stock cooler

-Kingmax Hercules DIMM 2GB DDR3 1600MHz 240-pin (FLGE)

-ASUS P55 Desktop Motherboard, mATX, PCIe x16, DVI, VGA, HDMI, PCI Express 3.0

After about four years, both the motherboard and the power supply finally gave up on me—so now I need to pick out a new board, and these are the options I'm looking at:

http://www.diskont24.com/home.php?cat=515

For the power supply, I went with:
Fractal Integra M 450W, 80+ BRONZE modular

It’s hard to give you an honest answer without knowing your budget... Generally, the more you spend, the better the gear, and honestly, looking at what you're doing, you clearly need at least another 2GB of RAM to get anything done properly.

By the way, have you actually tested the CPU and the memory yet? If the motherboard fried, you really ought to check those components too...

I’ve gone through everything, and it turns out my power supply completely fried. I'm planning on keeping the current motherboard for now—maybe upgrade it down the road if I really need to—but I did pick up an extra 4GB of RAM and a brand-new PSU. Given that setup, I was wondering: what would be a solid motherboard choice to pair with this configuration?

I’d at least go with this one: ASRock 970 PRO3 R2.0, for about $200. If I actually had a bit more cash on hand, I’d pick up one of those MSI or Gigabyte boards instead...

darkowl72 said:Personally, I’d grab at least this one: the ASRock 970 PRO3 R2.0 for about $200. If I had a bit more cash to burn, though, I'd look at something from MSI or Gigabyte...

No way, buying that ASRock would be a mistake when you can get a Gigabyte DS3P for just a few dollars more, which is significantly better. OP, your actual sweet spot should be THIS. You could go cheaper, but I don't think it's worth it if you care about an upgrade path. This motherboard gives you a solid foundation for future upgrades, so if you're buying now, it makes sense to stretch the budget just a little to reach it. Honestly, anything more than this probably isn't even necessary. 🙂

If you're pairing a 125W CPU with a budget MSI board on an LGA 1366 socket, there was never going to be a happy ending here.

If you're absolutely stuck with Discount24 and the Gigabyte DS3P isn't an option, it would be ideal if you could stretch your budget to this—especially considering that 125W power draw. It might feel a bit pricey for an older build, but it leaves the door open for upgrades to something like a Threadripper or high-end Ryzen series, and you could even overclock them (assuming you grab an aftermarket cooler, obviously). Generally speaking, ASUS and Gigabyte boards offer much more reliable voltage regulation for this type of socket.

Alright, thanks everyone—I really appreciate the help. It turns out the local Best Buy sold out of that DS3P yesterday; I was just sitting here thinking about pulling the trigger today, only to find it's already gone. That would have been my top pick, which is why I wanted to get your take on my next move. Honestly, I’ll just wait until Monday. If it shows up back in stock, great—if not, I'll probably just go with the ASUS M5A97 R2.0 instead.

PS: the CPU is 125W 😉

http://www.supernet.com/motherboards...-non-integrated

Maybe check this out for $215...

Just make sure you don't accidentally grab the one with LE in the name. That version skips the heatsink to save a few bucks, which is honestly a bad move because you really need that extra cooling in cases like this.

You really ought to go with Discount24...

http://diskont24.com/product.php?pro...cat=515&page=1

Unfortunately, they don't have the 970A-DS3P in stock, but this one is slightly more expensive—though I guess it's actually a bit better, too.

Yeah, thanks—but honestly, I’ll just check back in over the weekend. If the update happens to drop by Monday, then great, that's awesome. If not? No big deal. I'll just pick it up then instead.