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So after pages and pages of people posting problems with the P8P67, you decided to go with it instead? Certainly many of the posts have solutions in them, but why not get a board that comes working and doesn't need to be fixed first?
What's the point of the UD7 having 4 x16 slots (2 that run at x8) if in the end it's all x8? If there is only 1 x16 connection and you have 4 cards installed, would all four run a x4 instead of each pair (x16 and x8) sharing x8 like the spec say?
The UD3 is nearly the same as the UD4. Single GPU won't need the second PCI-E at x8. The screenshots show the base UD3 model has fewer smaller heatsinks on the board, so get the UD3P version if you can afford it.
I haven't looked at the cheaper Intel, MSI, or ASUS boards yet (the $130-$160...
C# and XNA. If just plain programming isn't exciting then why not see about programming games? XNA makes it a lot easier and with only a dozen or so lines of simple code you can have a sprite moving around the screen. He'll actually be able to show you his progress interactively. As a bonus...