Apologies, I'm not sure if I made what I meant to convey very clear.
I'm definitely not comparing overclocked Core 2 Quad/Duo with i7. It's stock for stock or both overclocked. All I'm pointing out is that Core i7 overclocks well too.
I even recommended Phenom II in my last post if value for money was a concern as it's very capable, it's a platform with no defined end of line date so far and there are plans for further CPU releases. I too have been building and selling computers and I've had hands on experience with both AMD Phenom II and Core 2 Duo/Quad platforms.
As for the "low end" i7 board, I'm not sure what's so wrong about that? I'd see where you're coming from if I were bundling a high end CPU and RAM with a £20 ECS/PC Chips/ASrock board but this isn't the same thing. In the context of the Gigabyte EX58 UD3R, it's build quality is fine. It's 8 phase power regulation is more than enough to run for years with a 130W+ TDP CPU like the i7 920 and shares the all solid caps and 2oz copper content in the PCB's as the higher end Gigabytes. It hits 200MHz BCLK just fine and it supports both SLI and Crossfire. Gigabyte haven't skimped on quality but rather ditched frills such as more hefty (and often unnecessary) northbridge/southbridge coolers. When you consider all of this, I think boards like the EX58 UD3R are excellent purchases.
Here's a few example builds. For the Phenom II and Core 2 Quad builds I used as examples, I used the same DDR2 kits for both, the i7 obviously got a different DDR3 kit. As for motherboards I included the cheapest motherboards possible without sacrificing quality, features and overclocking capabilities. Since overclocking is in the equation, I included the Titan Fenrir cooler, a relatively new £28 cooler that's been getting some good reviews.
As I stated in previous posts, it's clear that the Phenom II 940 build, offering very good gaming performance with the right graphics card for £145 less than the i7 build. This is the sort of setup I'd put together if someone needed a Quad Core setup with money as an important factor.
Next is the Core 2 Quad setup, which weighs in at about £100 less than the i7 setup. It's a solid performer that also overclocks well but the platform is at the end of the road. The only way that I could suggest the LGA775 route is if a CPU like an E5200/E8400 were used that was heavily overclocked. Value for money, such a setup would do well due to modern games being rather GPU limited than CPU.
Finally there's the i7 920 build. It's not as expensive as one may think it'd be. It's doable to sort out CPU/Motherboard/RAM/Cooler for £470, which isn't bad at all. The i7 is a better all round performer but it's talents are wasted on games as many will not fully utilise all four cores + hyperthreading.
I appreciate where you're coming from in what you're saying but today's "economic climate" doesn't mean a lot as not everyone is being affected by it. The original poster was asking for advice on £200+ motherboards so it would stand to reason that he's got plenty of money to drop on a computer. Sometimes it's hard to see but value for money is
not always the #1 priority for everyone. So long as the original poster is
fully aware that i7 isn't always noticeably better than cheaper platforms with certain applications including games, then I don't see what the problem is. Really, so long as he can also afford a quality graphics card, case etc to make a balanced i7 rig, I still do not see what is so wrong about taking that route.
