Trying to decide on a motherboard

[Sh1ntu]

Hello,

I'm salvaging parts from a desktop in which I need to replace the motherboard, and now plan to make a SFF computer instead (my first go at something small, haha) - I'm now trying to decide between two motherboards:

Gigabyte G1.Sniper.M3 - £121

or

Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe - £142

As for the rest of the components:

Sapphire ATI HD 6950 2gb Dirt3 Edition

LiteOn DVD-RW Drive

Corsair TXM 850w PSU

8gb DDR3 1600Mhz G.Skill RipjawsX Memory

64gb Crucial M4 SSD (OS)

256gb Crucial M4 SSD (Games)

1tb WD 7200rpm (Data)

Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced C1 CPU cooler

**Asus Xonar DX Sound card** - I know only the Gigabyte board has space for this, and I'd hate to lose it, but if the Asus board is that much better then I can live with it :)

I'm going to get the Bitfenix Prodigy (in White) to put everything in.

Any help deciding would be great :)

[Sashi]

The case you picked out only supports mITX unless you mod it.

The G1 board is mATX while the Asus board is mITX. Sadly there are only a handful of good mITX boards. eVGA is coming out with their own itx board, just gotta wait for a store to carry it, Z77 stinger.

Are you looking to build a ITX or mATX pc?

[XiaoPigs]

If you're looking to go SFF Lian-li has plenty of good cases out there.

As for the Motherboard your only option is the Asus one if you choose to stick with the Bitfenix Prodigy since it's mini-itx only.

Otherwise I would go for the G1 sniper M3 and like I said go look for a Lian-li case that you like if you want the G1 sniper.

[Sh1ntu]

I'd like mITX, but between them I'm not overly fussed. I just picked based on the case, honestly. I'm pretty much only going to be using it for gaming/media, and have it hooked up to a t.v., so I wanted something small-ish but still about as powerful as it used to be with room to upgrade the GPU later down the road.

[XiaoPigs]

The the ASUS one is pretty much your only choice to be honest.

It's still a great little motherboard though and it has a PCI-E 16x slot on it just for that GPU that you might be planning on adding.

[Sh1ntu]

Ooh - sorry - just noticed you wrote one before I replied. Same time, too :) - I'll take a look at some Lian-Li ones just in case. Any suggestions?

[Sashi]

Here are some mITX case choices

Silverstone SG05/06/07/08

Coolermaster Elite 120

Coolermaster HAF XB

Bitfenix Prodigy

Fractal Design Node 304

Lian Li PC-Q06/07

[XiaoPigs]

If plan on doing something unique I'd suggest from the list Sashi gave the HAF XB or sticking with the Bitfenix Prodigy.

For Lian Li I would have to go with the PC-Q11b

The Fractal Design Node is not bad too and as for the other cases Sashi recommended I don't have any comments about them. Take your pick :)

[Sh1ntu]

Thanks both of you for the help :)

[Sashi]

I built a buddy of mine using the Node 304, he wanted a HTPC style case, its pretty nice to work in.

I actually want to buy the HAF XB but still waiting for NCIX to restock :P

The Bitfenix is way too big for my taste, it should have been a mATX case to start with

[amas]

You really can't go wrong with either of those motherboards. Just pick whichever colors you like. I personally use the Asrock z77 itx board since it was gold/black.

Like others have mentioned, you would need a bigger case if you want the mATX gigabyte board.

[Jason]

the p8z77 -i deluxe is awesome but the onboard soundcard sucks :c it has only 3 plugs and you cant use more than a pair of speakers with it