[Carbon]

What's the 'fantastic price', exactly?

And the AC7 Pro is worthless, well it's not as bad as the stock cooler but there's no reason to buy non-HDT coolers anymore.

For the motherboard, try a MA770-UD3.

[poopsniff]

Awesome, thanks for the recommendation. So what cooler would you recommend? And now I'm thinking about buying a wireless networking card........ but I still don't know what I'm looking for in a motherboard.

So a cooler, 9800gtx+, and a wireless networking card...........................

Would that MA770 support all of these items? Again, please just tell me what I'm looking for in a mobo in the first place.

Thanks.

[Carbon]

Chipset and reviews (to keep out really buggy stuff from your options) are the only things you should look at. Yes, it will work with all of those, and I would fit a Xigmatek S-1283.

The 9800GTX+ is usually not a very good deal, but w/e.

[poopsniff]

Thanks! I always read the reviews, but I don't know anything about chipsets. I thought I was supposed to look at the PCI express slots? ..to simply see how many components I can fit onto one motherboard, lol. So that is irrelevant?

would you happen to just know a short (intel) mobo list of what i personally need? within a reasonable price range

[Carbon]

In order of price

Any P43 board (MSI, Gigabyte, etc)
Gigabyte P45-UD3L (<-- best price/perf)
Gigabyte P45-UD3R (more SATA slots, 6 instead of 4)
Gigabyte P45-UD3P (one more PCI-E, not really a big deal)

No other company has better P45 boards - ASUS has some P5Qs but they're overpriced and shitty. They also don't OC well.

And yes, amount of PCI-E slots is largely irrelevant. SLI and Crossfire are XXTREMEPROGAMERZZZZ CHECK OUT MY 50000 BUNGHOLIOMARKS gimmicks for 99% of users. Single graphics cards can max out almost any game at any res today.