Motherboards, what does you money buy you?

[Killerkebab]

Sorry if this question sounds stupid, but I'm having trouble getting my head around it.

If you're someone like me and you have no real interest in overclocking (it would be nice if it was free performance with no possibility of screwing up the parts but, alas ), and you can't afford super high end CPU/RAM combinations, is there any point getting the expensive motherboards?

I was thinking of getting an i5-2500k and a decent mid range card like a GTX460 or HD5850 for BF3/MW2/etc (I'm assuming this will be sufficient, right? ). However I don't know what I should be looking for in a motherboard.

As long as it supports SATA3 and USB3 with a LAN port and can boot up without exploding, why should a casual user get an expensive board?

I know I'm probably missing the point, but please, humour me

 

[Killerkebab]

I was thinking that SheepBeast, but then when I want to upgrade, the bloody CPU socket has changed - buying a £200 motherboard rather than a £100 does nothing to help against this

 

[Killerkebab]

So your advice for me would be to buy the cheapest motherboard that isn't micro-ATX and has Socket 1155, 4 RAM slots and a few SATA ports?

I've had this E6600 for just over five years now, and the HD4870 for about two years. I wish I could just upgrade the graphics card and call it quits but it probably won't hack it with this CPU :/