Of course, take your time :)
Well I've done most of the explanation and research there. It didn't take long since some of these products are the ones I'm using so I only had to find facts and experience with these products. I'll see if there's a better PSU that is within your price range.
EDIT: Okay... I had a look and for my Market, we're only talking about a 10 USD to 30 USD difference. That's not a lot of leg room for this kind of purchase. For my market approximate calculation, it comes down to 150.00 USD. Give and take 20 USD in margin in error.
So lets say you need the CPU, the motherboard you need to pick something reasonable. So can you tell me what is the chances of needed more than 6 SATA slots in the system. The more internal SATA devices your system needs to run, the better the motherboard has to be. The motherboard I advised was a example.
If you want a better motherboard to suit your needs, we can use more information on how much you plan to expand in the next few years or even how long you want to use the system for.
The Current Motherboard - ASUS MAXIMUS V FORMULA MB has only
8 SATA internal ports [
Corrected] from what I'm reading.
I feel that's pretty bad choice I gave you honestly. So I'm looking into the other motherboards to readjust the previous list and posting the new motherboard I think you should consider.
/Off-Topic/
Also I'm a ASUS biased due to my past experience with them versus Gigabyte. Had a full Overclocked System based on Gigabyte parts and it actually went south in six months. It was a beast in High Specifications Gaming and if you got something heavy to throw at it in terms of computerizing, it will churn it and show what 'Beast Mode On' is like. Still going to troubleshoot that machine when ever I feel like to find out what was faulty in the end. Can't run without shutting down in 5 minutes flat.
Don't let that experience of mine get you down. If Gigabyte or whatever company that produces your parts worked well with you, then stick with it.
EDIT... AGAIN: Feels bad, sorry, I'm bit skittish when it comes down to details that affect future builds. The motherboard is good. It has 8 SATA ports internally. Had to compare it to the same series of boards to make sure the information was right and why it written in that manner.
That's plenty for several years to come, if your case is what you claim to be. You can fit a possible of 6 to 7 HDD/SSD depending if your GPU, also known as Video/Graphics Card, requires a SATA Port or not. And lets be honest, you can always use one PCI to expand more SATA ports if you really need to.
If you don't need that many SATA internal ports, then there's cheaper alternatives which is still good. I simply chose that motherboard assuming you're keeping that CPU for a long time. I'm thinking on the lines of seven to ten years of no upgrading of your System parts for motherboards and CPU.
If you plan to upgrade your CPU and Motherboard in five years flat, I would heavily advise you to pick a cheaper motherboard. A motherboard with six SATA internal ports is still decent and if you're not going to add more than 2 HDD then you're better off not buying this motherboard.
A similar motherboard that is around 100 USD Cheaper in my market, is
ASUS Maximus V GENE Motherboard. This motherboard is relatively the same but just be wary about having to RMA if things goes south. The same as the one I mentioned, there's reports needing to "
remove the wifi module or install wifi module without the metal L bracket." This assumes you're building the system yourself.
Another Edit: This will be last one on this post in regards to motherboards. Lets assuming you're going to replace your CPU and motherboard in 5 years or better yet, you don't need 8 SATA internal ports.
ASUS P8Z77-V-LK MB, Intel Z77 is much better that lets you have
six SATA internal ports.
If you need another two or more ports, you can always expand it for 30 USD minimum approximately to have a one or two more SATA PCI Expansion slots to help support more SATA internal devices. This excludes all the costs of someone professional doing all the basic cleaning, readjusting all my wiring and ensuring all my cables are neat and has clear airflow within my system.
Pretty sure it's two, but I didn't do the cabling for my system so I can't tell. The said item is comes under as 'Manhattan SATA 300 RAID 0/1/5.' Does it job pretty well supporting extra SATA devices on a PCI expansion slot. But this assumes you have spent on a decent PSU to support the extra SATA devices, otherwise you need to buy a better one which is not want you want in a long term. The one I have suggested has a RMS, continuous, power supply of 750 Watts at all times with the ability to support 9 SATA internal devices. It should last until you choose to dump it.
Last Edit of this Post: Naturally this is a long post with a ton of information about expansion than anything really. If anything, before you make any purchase do all the final research on the items you intend to purchase before hitting that pay button. I'm no professional in this field but I do have experience in these parts. And when I say professional, I'm talking about being that computer technician that fixes over hundreds of systems in a year level for many years, with load of variance of system builds.
Each motherboard I suggested, however, has different performances in other areas such as integrated HD audio, external USB slots and so forth. Make sure you look it up if that's the very part you want to buy under your budget. Otherwise you can expand next time to include things that is consider extras like sound card and so forth. And if you don't plan to watch most of your media off your PC System then you can ignore features like HDMI and that stuff. It really something to get you into the loop of buying something you may never use.
Honestly it sounds like you can skimp a lot with
ASUS P8Z77-V-LK MB, Intel Z77 since it doesn't seem like you're going to need a powerhouse gaming system. This will literally give you space to buy that CPU, Intel Core i7 3770K, the SSD, SanDisk - SDSSDX-120G-Q25, the PSU, Antec High Current Gamer 750W Power Supply, and Video/Graphic Card, ASUS GeForce GTX650 Ti, 1GB, for about 1000 USD. Give or take 200 USD based on whatever factors your market pricing schemes. All the pricing comes from my nation market prices, so this excludes a lot of things like customs and so forth.
Cheaper 6 SATA Internal Ports Build (Non-Modular PSU)
Notes: All prices I've listed comes from Amazon as a base resource to get prices under the assumption of USD pricing. I've added the highest price as the standard to ensure absolute maximum on how much it will cost you. This is to date from 2013/05/19 regardless of time zone. And I ignored all price reductions, otherwise it won't be accurate.
| Computer Part | Part Name/Model | Price |
| CPU | Intel Core i7 3770K | 314.14 |
| Mother board | ASUS P8Z77-V-LK MB, Intel Z77 | 149.99 |
| PSU | Antec High Current Gamer 750W Power Supply | 149.95 |
| Storage Device (SSD/HDD) | SanDisk - SDSSDX-120G-Q25 | 134.99 |
| After Market CPU Cooler | CoolerMaster Hyper TX3 Evo | 39.99 |
| Video Card/GPU | ASUS GeForce GTX650 Ti, 1GB | 151.25 |
| Opitical Drive | LG CH12LS28 Internal Blu-ray Reader/DVD-Writer - GT1075 | 119.64 |
| Grand Total | 1059.95 |
| Account Possible Delivery and Customs | 200 to 400 |
Not too shabby for the cheapest motherboard with everything I can throw at it. If you went with 'ASUS MAXIMUS V FORMULA MB' switch the price with 389.00 and you get the idea on how much it costs you. This excludes everything else like shipping and customs note. So I don't really know the true final price unless you do the maths yourself. Pretty sure if you add a total of 200 to 400 USD on it it be around there. Never shipped things over or even have it sent in 48 hours deliveries so I wouldn't know.
Now, I'm want to take a day break before I go over this again. Read it over and consider your options. Hope this helps you out.
