lookius

I like the look of the ASRock boards atm. The Gigabyte boards also look good and in that price range you could get a UD3. If looks aren't a factor you could also consider the Asus Z170-A (I say this because it has a brown PCB.)

Mainly marketing, however WS boards tend to have higher grade components designed to last longer but thats mostly about it. Just pick what you think is pretty... Oh and what you can afford too .

I am a MG1 from Scotland, have sent a friend request.

What is your rank? I am MG1

Of course but it is described by Amazon as in "Very Good" condition and is at half price. This will help me a lot as my funds are limited.

The MPower has just appeared second hand on Amazon for just over £70. I think I am going to go for it as this is a great deal even if it is second hand... http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00K8KJF9O/ref=sr_1_2_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1436708780&sr=8-2&keywords=z97+mpower&condition=used

Yea mainly aesthetically, but I would say you are exaggerating with regards to quality.

That board is horrible, never liked ASRock boards... As for colour co-ordination, it was my intention to use all black ram, use a NZXT Kraken X61 with the LED set to yellow, get yellow and black cables from CableMod and perhaps mod my 970 in a way similar to the green mod in Linus' Razer build. I don't really want to downgrade to Z87.

This motherboard seems to have disappeared from the UK and I was planning to use it for a build. I don't have an extra £50 to upgrade to the MPower Max AC. PCPartpicker Link: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-motherboard-z97mpower My only real thought is that MSI plan to release a USB 3.1 variant however I am not sure. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Windows 95 shutdown sound!

Should have put Tadas at the end...

Have a look at Caselabs' SMA8, it is like a 900D, except bigger and much better quality, I would recommend it for a build like this.

Looks nice! A decent upgrade!

650W is way overkill, I would go with something like a Corsair CX500M and your motherboard might be a bit overkill as well. I would also try and fit an 120GB SSD in there like a Kingston SSDNow V300 for £50. Otherwise solid build.

Thanks for the information...