From what I have been reading, the newer motherboards and CPUs are incompatible with Win 7 without doing extreme measures/workarounds, which do not interest me. I would like recommendations of motherboards that actually support Win 7 from the start. Legacy is fine, provided I can track it down.
I have a CM Storm trooper SGC-5000-KKN1 case, Asus Xonar D2/PM/A PCIe audio card, three Syba SYMRA55006 mobile racks, a load of WD Caviar Black WD1001FALs hard disks, a Brother HL-L6200DW Laser, and a Pixma TS9020 Inkjet. That's what we are starting with, so now I need help to flesh it out. This custom build will be for surfing the net, video streaming movies from sites like putlockers, probably video coding/editing/burning DVDs, use of either Photoshop or GIMP, word-processing using Word 2003, maybe Virtualbox, using 64-bit Linux LiveCDs, and doing printouts using both printers. I don't do gaming, torrents, nor anything not already mentioned.
The most important things I consider for a motherboard (beside Win 7 native support) are minimum 16GB RAM capacity, the more expansion slots and SATA connectors the better, at least four USB 2.0 connectors, and eSATA would be nice...but I could live without it. I should maybe also mention that VGA port is required. Probably an i7 CPU (or equivalent AMD) socket would be the minimum I'd consider. Price is not really a consideration, as I will be buying components one at a time, but I doubt I'd want to exceed $300 for any given part.
I have a CM Storm trooper SGC-5000-KKN1 case, Asus Xonar D2/PM/A PCIe audio card, three Syba SYMRA55006 mobile racks, a load of WD Caviar Black WD1001FALs hard disks, a Brother HL-L6200DW Laser, and a Pixma TS9020 Inkjet. That's what we are starting with, so now I need help to flesh it out. This custom build will be for surfing the net, video streaming movies from sites like putlockers, probably video coding/editing/burning DVDs, use of either Photoshop or GIMP, word-processing using Word 2003, maybe Virtualbox, using 64-bit Linux LiveCDs, and doing printouts using both printers. I don't do gaming, torrents, nor anything not already mentioned.
The most important things I consider for a motherboard (beside Win 7 native support) are minimum 16GB RAM capacity, the more expansion slots and SATA connectors the better, at least four USB 2.0 connectors, and eSATA would be nice...but I could live without it. I should maybe also mention that VGA port is required. Probably an i7 CPU (or equivalent AMD) socket would be the minimum I'd consider. Price is not really a consideration, as I will be buying components one at a time, but I doubt I'd want to exceed $300 for any given part.