Looking for help with finding specific motherboard for my system

[ralfidude]

Hello all, first time poster here (Referred to by a friend)

My current situation is as follows:

I will be buying the I7-7700K and overclocking it near 5Ghz or under.
Due to my current older chipset I have to upgrade my motherboard for this 1151 socket.

What I'd like is the new lineup of Z270 motherboards but I have a peculiar set of requirements that is making this extremely difficult.

I was looking at the LONG list of new z270 mobos from ASUS and Gigabite but here is what I need:

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- On the back of the motherboard (I/O side) I need to be able to plug in at LEAST 5 USBs. (This automatically scratches out some motherboards)

- On the mobo itself I need to have at least 2 x USB 2.0, and 2 x USB 3.0 headers (this HEAVILY scratches out other mobos)

- Needs at least 6 SATA ports (I'm running 5 drives right now taking up 5 of my SATA ports on my current board, I'm a content creator among other things so drives are a thing with me).

- In relation to the above SATA I just learned that if your mobo has only 1 M.2 slot, or if it has 2 and you use the bottom M.2 slot it may either SHARE or STEAL 2 of your SATA ports to work with it.
Up to this point I was going to buy the ASUS TUF Z270 MARK 1 but then I saw it has only 1 M.2 slot and it WILL steal or SHARE two of the 6 SATA ports which is not acceptable to me. I want to get a Samsung 960 EVO M.2 500GB in there but as I previously mentioned I also have 5 drives I'm running, which takes up 5 SATA ports.
So If I put the 960 EVO in the M.2 slot in this mobo, then I would be down 2 SATA ports... which means I'm one SATA port short for one of my drives...
If this mobo had 2 x M.2 slots then I wouldn't have to worry since I would put the 960 EVO on the top M.2 slot and my SATA ports wouldn't have to get shared or stolen.
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As you can see from the above section I have a little bit of a demand here and after hours of research and comparison, I am just exhausted. If anybody can drop me a few suggestions to any boards that would fit my criteria, then I would be forever grateful.

PS: I'm not a stickler for ROG LED lighting, I don't care if the mobo has it or not. Neither do I care too much about the audio quality of the board as I have an audio card I will be slotting in to this mobo.

Thank you in advance.

 

[mda]

The Strix Z270H seems to have what you are loooking for
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/ROG-STRIX-Z270H-GAMING/specifications/

6 USB ports at the back
8 USB ports mid board (4 USB2/ 4 USB3 so I suppose that's 2 headers each as required)
6 SATA ports
2x M2 slots that will take 2 NVME SSDs without taking up SATA ports (will only use SATA ports if you use a SATA M2)
Note that the 950 and 960 series is not a SATA device so it will not use a SATA port when plugged in either slot.

There are probably other boards but I took a look at all the Asus Z270s first and this was the first one I saw that fit the bill.

 

[emmjawsX]

A few of the Asrock boards would meet that criteria as well. Same deal as you mentioned with the ports being disabled with M.2 usage but there are 8/10 SATA port models.

 

[ralfidude]

Thank you. I will take another look through the Strix boards.