Need help with motherboard in system configurator

[Llama8]

I'm in the market for a new PC & while I would normally buy the parts & put it together, I just can't be arsed this time around (work + wife + kids != lots of free time) & one of my friends had his last pc built by OC.

While I'm happy choosing most of the components from the list in the configurator, what I'm mainly unsure of is the motherboard & I was wondering if anyone had a link or two that would go over the main differences between boards. I'll probably be going for an Intel cpu (since they seem to have lower TDP for similar GHz) & the Haswell-based pro-gaming machine.

Additionally, is there much of a difference in the cases, other than aesthetics?

 

[mickyflinn]

The main differences on the motherboards are usually SLI and XFIRE , extra ports, features and power delivery for overclocking.

Cases should be highly considered, as some offer better cooling, cable management, etc.

If your spending a £1000 on a machine then i would spend 10% of your budget on a case.

 

[Llama8]

Ok, I guess I'll have a look somewhere that lets you compare multiple boards "stats" side by side. And probably do the same for the cases as well.

 

[Llama8]

The wife has finally signed off on a new pc now that our employment has settled down, so I have a few questions if someone might indulge me...

I was thinking of using the pro-gamer X65 configurator to build a machine, but since I live in a house with cats, I was wondering if any of the cases had (removable for cleaning) filters in/on them to deal with dust/cat fur?

My current monitor is a 22" Samsung that does 1680x1050, while I would like a larger/higher res screen, it seems that you have to go up a fair bit in price to get one that does above 1920x1080. How much of an "improvement" is 1920x1080 over 1680x1050? I'm not entirely sure whether I want to drop ~£400 of the budget on a new monitor if it's not going to be a fairly big step up.

Edit: The budget's probably ~£2,000-£2,500.

Thanks.