New mobo time

[Konrad]

My last real mobo purchase was circa 2009ish so I'm a bit behind (yeah, I kinda quit the cutting edge thing and much prefer to do component-level mods on older stuff now) ... but I have obtained a beautiful never-used unlocked 6-core i7-990X/3.47GHz I wanna overclock and abuse ... so I think I need:

LGA1366
X58 + ICH10R (best i7 chipset?)
DDR3 (24GB+/1333+), PCIe 3 (x16/x16/x8?), SATA 3, USB 3, etc etc etc everything 3
don't care about mobo-integrated graphics, audio, LAN, etc, gonna plug in overclocked upgrades
full ATX preferred

Any advice, suggestions? I don't mind paying ~$500 or more if needed for a single mobo, and I expect top-tier models aren't being made anymore for this "old" processor. Yeah, it's a bit steep pricing for half-obsolete stuff (should never spend money upgrading old tech to old tech!) ... but we all need hobbies haha, I like modding the mobo schematics and capacities, firmware, hardware, chips and bits, this isn't buying a computer so much as investing in a new "development board" I can solder other parts onto ... so I'd like to get a good one.

[Konrad]

Wow, that's an old post. I never did get my "dream" X58 going, lol.

But in the intervening years I've worked on about ten mobos across half a dozen chipsets. Always tinkering now with my modded up SuperMicro C7X99 mobo, able to wire in my own "firmware board" (in place of the BIOS chips and ASIC) to gain pin-level control over the PCMs and VRMs and oscillators, install my own hardware monitors/controls, useless but fancy LEDs on signal paths to devices, etc. I get a warm happy feeling of super confidence when I know *exactly* what code my hardware is running, lol.

FWIW, I started off with an Asus X99 R5E, but quickly discovered that Asus is notoriously paranoid about revealing anything to their competitors, they never explain much, they leave a lot of the juiciest bits deliberately cryptic, they don't document anything in finest detail (although, to be fair, their ROG forum community has some quite knowledgeable techheads), they don't support anything, and while Asus tech is always a top choice Asus tech always commands the highest prices. Asus ROG mobos are arguably among the very best enthusiast/overclocking mobos available, but they make utterly lousy development board for serious component-level experimentation and enhancement.

[richardlawson1489]

Asus pro mobo is also good, I think.