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I have to confess ignorance on the Intel side of things, gerbils. I've followed AMD more closely for years due to the bank/buck factor, but I am seriously considering a Core i3-2100T for my next build. So, on the Intel side, what's the best chipset to consider and one of the better board makers for said chipset? I'm not into any heavy gaming at all, though I might do the occasional round of Torchlight II when it is released. I'm just intrigued by the performance/watt the T series from Intel offers.

Best currently-available chipset for LGA1155: Intel Z68
Best form factor: Micro-ATX
Best motherboard brand: Asus

Take a look at the Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 as an example.

I'm puzzled why you're going with the i3-2100T, unless you want extremely low voltage --the i3-2100 is faster, and not by an insignificant amount (3.1GHz instead of 2.5GHz). I believe the i3-2100 actually costs less, too. 65w (the 2100 non-T's TDP) still isn't that high.

Unless you plan to upgrade to an unlocked (overclockable) K-Series Core CPU in the future, a chipset with overclocking support really doesn't matter. So the next question is what video solution (integrated or a discrete graphics card) you plan to use, and whether you wish to do any video encoding (which could be greatly helped by Intel's onboard video due to QuickSync technology).

If onboard video (or Intel Quicksync) isn't important, P67 chipset mainboards are cheaper than the latest Z68 enthusiast class chipset. Actually, H67 would be just fine as well if you never plan to upgrade to an overclockable processor.

To make it easier (note: all boards that support integrated graphics also support a discrete graphics card too):

H61 - value proposition, only supports two RAM sockets, no SATA 6gbps hard drive support, minimal if any overclocking support, supports Intel integrated graphics
H67 - Adds 6Gbps SATA support, support for four RAM sockets, minimal if any overclocking support, supports Intel integrated graphics
P67 - Like H67, but full overclocking suppport, no support for Intel integrated graphics
Z68 - Like P67 (full overclocking), but support for Intel integrated graphics, also adds support for Intel SRT technology (SSD caching)

http://ark.intel.com/compare/52816,52810,52807,52806

Thanks for the insight as always!