Newbie question - best duo/quad motherboard?

Greetings,

I have a big favor to ask of the experienced users here:

I currently run a P4 3E overclocked to 3.4 comfortably. I now want to upgrade to a duo quad core based system and have so many choices. I do a lot of video rendering, so I want quality, good price and great performance.

I have heard that the MSI boards are good, Asus is good, but has poor customer service.

I have considered the P35 Platinum board, so I wanted to ask everyone of their opinion or recommendation on another product. Budget is about 500 or so for the motherboard, strong overclockable memory, copper cpu cooler, and video card. That is not firm, but probably pretty close. I might have to settle for a dual instead of quad also, as quads are a bit pricey. Wish I could afford the extreme line of processors, but not now. I want my new motherboard to support future growth into the 1333 FSB speeds, and support for the extreme line of processors.

Please post some guidance for me. I am old school and not current on the newest technology.

Scott

First off, there is no single "best" motherboard. They generally all have their pros and cons and slightly different features. For overclocking, I usually recommend either the Abit IP35 series or Asus P5K series. These are both the latest P35 chipset and are very reliable. If you are looking for a really good bang for the buck without cheaping out too much, then look at the Abit IP35, E6750, 2X1MB Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400, and Corsair 520HX PSU (or 620HX if you can afford it). The MSI mobos are really second class compared to what I listed.

Stay away from MSI, look into the Abit and Asus that batboy suggested, and also a great budget mobo is the Gigabyte P35 DS3R for only $130 and should be able to overclock your quad to 3.6GHz if you have good cooling. If you want about the best out right now go with the Asus P5K Premium.

Thanks for the recommendations, I will steer clear of MSI then, I was not sure of the latest releases from them, so I asked. Abit is probably the way I will go, so again, thanks you guys.

Scott

Get the Asus P5k Premium unless you want to do a Vdroop mod.

If your video rendering software can use 4 threads than a Xeon X3210 can be found for $250-260 and is a solid choice if you plan on overclocking. Also much more future proof than a dual core. You seem to keep your systems long so that is my advice.