Help deciding

[webbed]

Ive been looking at a few motherboards for an upgrade. Right now I'm looking at either p35-ds3r, p5k or ip35. From what I've read I think p35 chip is the way to go and these seem like best boards I can afford. The rest of the system is going to be q6600, 8800gts, and 2gb ballistix. I'm mostly going to game and overclock when I get water cooling for it. I don't think any of them are really bad. Should I just go with whats cheapest?

 

[BillParrish]

I would down load the manual for each board and at least skim through it for "gotchas" not mentioned in the advertisments or product blurb. Take a good look at the bios screens and see if any one borad is easier for you to understand on how to OC it, for instace ASUS and Gigabyte bios are completely different in how the same information and settings are presented. Not saying one is better than the other, just different and only you can determine which one you understand better.

Stuff you find in manual you dont find on the "marketing"
Number and location of fan headers.
Notes on memory usage/limitations
Range of voltage adjustments (if its a decent manual)

Check the warranty and RMA policy of each manuf as well.

One water cooling nut to another, if you mount the board with 2 motherboard screws, before you install the heatsink/fan, and mark the CPU heatsink mounting holes onto the motheboard mounting plate, remove motherboard, use 1 inch metal cutting hole saw and cut holes in the mounting plate, get every scrap of metal shavings/dust out, you can then later mount your water block by taking off the right side panel and not have to uninstall the board.