Yet another purchase recommendation thread

Hey, all -

Sorry for creating another one of these sorts of threads, but given how overwhelmed with choices I'm seeing right now, I think it's better to at least ask around for opinions rather than to take a wild guess.

I'm currently working with a moderately overclocked setup with a Phenom II x6 Black core and an Asus M4A79T Deluxe board. Though the CPU is working well, having replaced the Phenom II x4 that failed about two and a half years ago, The M4A mobo is definitely becoming a drag in the lineup.

Current Setup:
Sparing the excessive details:
1 solid-state drive + 4 hard drive
1x MSI Twin Frozr II 6950 GPU card
8 GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 speed RAM
Corsair 600W Power Supply (yes, I know, overkill)

As a replacement, I'm looking to purchase an i7-4770K or i7-4820K CPU (depends on suggestions and pricing), but the motherboard choices are leaving me stumped, due to the sheer number of choices available. Let me list some of my particular uses and constraints:

1) Uses - I tend to use my computer for some gaming - nothing strenuous, except for when games misbehave (I'm looking right at you, Total War 2: Rome...) I also use my computer to do some hobbyist-level graphics and rendering work. (Hence the i7 over an i5, which would normally be a bit more sensible). I also run a media server off the current setup, so the newer setup will probably be taking over that duty as well, at least until I can set up my outgoing setup into a dedicated unit.

2) Size - I'm not too worried about this. I intend to purchase a new mid-tower case to house the equipment, so no worries about keeping it a mATX board or anything.

3) Graphics - I'm going to hang onto the MSI 6950 I'm currently running, as it still has a little life left on it, I think. So onboard video quality isn't a big concern for me right now.

4) Sound - Not too worried about this either. I'm running a fairly modest audio setup, so I don't need cream-of-the-crop sort of audio.

5) Overclocking - I usually prefer dead-stable settings, with biases towards keeping temperatures well within operating parameters under load. This allows me to run a system that won't wake the wife up while it's churning away when I'm doing something. I won't push a system TOO hard, but I do like to keep my system running at above average speeds.

What I'm looking for -

I'm looking for a X79 or Z87 board (again, depending on the chip) that's reasonably feature-filled, though I definitely don't like the idea of paying premium prices for gold-plated features (Armor?), which sort of puts boards like the Asus RoG line right out of contention. I'm looking at spending around $150-$300 US, though the cheaper I can make it, the better. I'd appreciate a good capacity to tune and tweak, though as I said before, you won't find me on the forums trying to clock max stable speeds out of anything.

Any suggestions? Thanks for indulging a board newbie.

I had a Z87X-UD5H from Gigabyte, and it was great. Loved the BIOS, very sensible (and runs in 1080p) layout, features were great too. No complaints. Then I switched to a mini itx setup so I got a Z87N-Wifi again from Gigabyte, but it was a bit disastrous, it wouldn't sleep, and some features were gimped (USB On off Charge allows phone charging while off but the Z87N used a software solution that had some caveats while the Z87X had a hardware based implementation so there were no caveats).

After all this I bought a RoG maximus impact (also itx) and it's perfect. Fan control is way better than either gigabyte, bios is not as sensible in layout nor 1080p but it works perfectly, good sound quality (I used to have a USB DAC but with this mobo I disconnected it).

I guess the lesson I learned is that the high-end of any company will probably satisfy most users and personally I'm sold on the RoG line because of the amount of support it has developed (once you have a reputation, you're more liable I guess). I don't think I'll go with an inexpensive board again. So if fan control matters to you (individual control for each header), then a high end asus should do. Otherwise I guess it depends on what you're used to and what you can find cheaper.