Searching through a sea of mobos

MHarts

New Member
I am building my first computer system and am finding making descisions to be a difficult task. I've settled on a Q6600 intel CPU and an 8800GTX GPU but can'tfigure out which mobo to pair them with. I won't be doing SLI, as it does not seem cost effective for the gain, but that still only narrows the field a bit. I've looked at a wide variety of chipsets by several makers and am lost as to how to determine what's best.

The 680i seems like overkill since I won't be doing SLI, but that still leaves the many other choices such as the P35 chipsets like the ASUS P5K (there are eight or so models of this board alone) and the GIGABYTE boards. Can anyone give me a real grasp on what exactly I should be focused on when differentiating between these boards? I have read the mobo 101 guide but still find myself wanting for information. I would prefer to spend around the 100-150 mark but can go higher if there is a real need to. Thanks in advance for your help.
 
I was looking at Newegg and Zipzoomfly for the best deals I could get and I checked this board out as one of my possibilities. It's not packed with a lot of stuff I won't use and seems like a good price. THe only reason I didn't up and buy it when I first looked is that I don't want to spend my money until I've really got some expert advice on what will be the best bang for my buck. Your reply has made me more confident in this as my purchase. I'd like some more opinions as well if people want to throw them out.

I have read that the 680i chipset boards are really only important if you are doing SLI, is this true? I also read that the P35 boards were rock solid for the quad core CPUs.

Here's the rest of what I'm thinking if you care to give me more input or if it helps let you know what I might need.

CPU - Q6600
GPU - 8800GTX
Case - ANTEC Nine Hundred
RAM - OCZ Gold 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Hard Drive - Western Digital Raptor X WD1500AHFD 150GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150
Power Supply - OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI ATX12V 700W

The last thing I want is to get all my components together and realize I've made some major error in judgement. Thanks a lot for your opinion, I appreciate it. If no one has a dissenting opinion that's the one I'll go with.
 
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