Thermal Glue

What motherboard will be the most compliant for the long haul of upgrading in the future?

I need a motherboard that will give me the ability to upgrade for years to come. I don't want to buy a new computer for at least 5-8 years, but want to stay up to date as possible with mostly multimedia. What key features should I be looking at, and what recommendations would you offer me?

Public Comments

1. That's a bit difficult to predict since technology moves so fast, and things get phased out quickly Obviously, you'd want a high end board, that supports 24 GB of RAM, and the upcoming USB 3.0 I'd suggest a Core i7 1366 socket board since it supports the most powerful processors available now, and it will also support the Core i9s coming out this year sometime, unlike the 1156 socket Core i7s.
2. Adding onto Bear's answer: You might want to also consider a motherboard with the new SATA "interface"? Instead of the popular, common 3.0GB/s, you may want to get 6.0BG/s instead. A motherboard with 2 PCI-E x16 2.0 (or better..) with a couple of PCI / PCI-E x1 slots too. A high amount of phases on the mothboard is also good. Example: The recent ASUS P7P55D Premium Motherboard has 32 +3 phases (which is really good), It has SATA 6.0GB/s, 2 PCI-E x16 slots,etc. http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1168/1/ RAM slots: most mothberboards now have 4 RAM slots, but some have 6 or more, which will be fairly useful. * EVGA also has a new motherboard coming out; The Dual LGA1366 Xeon. http://www.legitreviews.com/news/7155/ -7 PCi-E x16 slots - supports 2 CPUs (two physical ones) - 12 RAM slots - 8 SATA 6.0GB/s ports - USB 3.0 This is certainly last for a long time, but the price is insane. Another one would be this: EVGA 170-BL-E762-A1 LGA 1366 Intel X58 4-WAY SLI Classified XL ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188059