Ah, that's where I got confused. The board I looked at on the Gigabyte site, was a Gigabyte GA-970-DS3P (rev. 1.0) an entirely different board to the Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P. It is an updated board to the one I recall having issues with. That's how come I got the wrong specs and felt the board would not be man enough for the CPU, thus creating a bottleneck. 

I'm so sorry Glazunov1, my apologies for confusing the issue and placing doubt in your mind.  I think it's the old age setting in, and my memory playing tricks, but the board you chose originally will perform admirably for what you need, given the specs on the Gigabyte site.  I'm just glad it is sorted out now and you can proceed with your build.

Anyhow, all the best with it and happy computing.

With the excellent points made earlier about Intel vs AMD, I've been feeling uneasy about sticking with the latter, even given the online site's significantly higher price. We went to Microcenter, and were able to secure a reasonably good Intel-based CPU, in a package that came up about a hundred dollars more. No 3 years warranty; no free keyboard and mouse. But all in all, not a bad machine:

Intel Core I5-4670K

Asrock Z87-Extreme3 ATX LGA 1150

EVGA GTX650 1 GB D5 PCIE DDMH

Corsair 750W CXMOD 80+BRZ ATX PSU

Crucial 8GB 4X2 D3 1600 DIMM CL9

Zalman Z11 Plus ATX Case 2/USB3

Samsung E 120GB 840EVO SATA3 2.5"

Seagate 2 TB 3.5 7200 RPM Int SATA

IPSG LG 24X DVDRW SATA OEM (a pair of these)

MS OEM Win 7 Home Premium (if they'd offered Win8, I would have wanted $400 deducted from the price)

Corsair Hydro H60 Liquid Cooler

BSC ASY Computer Assembly

That's it. Similar to what I had before in most respects, if not identical, but the Intel's a very nice chip, if not quite the latest wave of the future. Thoughts?

For starters...being 'sensible' and using such things as True Image...to backup the OS drive [in particular]...thus avoiding the silliness of re-installing everything every 12 months/whatever....

And I have just one Game which would fill a third of that 1TB on its own.

Like ram, you can never have 'too much' HD space...

Yes to Jafo's points, above. OS operations are sped up, and I do tons of work with a great many sound files, and some games that are so heavily modded they take up forever. I've held off on running Skyrim just because of that--my Morrowind and Oblivion modlists exceed the maximum allowable (over 254, if I recall correctly) by combining some.

Just like RAM, you can never have too much drive space. Besides, if you began computer life with a TRS-80, the idea of two terrabytes is like being given your own planet to wander around in.

But again, I draw attention to the new Intel configuration for the rig, above. I'd change it in the first post, but that would invalidate everything that's been written, since. I'm frankly glad we moved away from AMD after the comments I read here, and in articles elsewhere.

Thanks for catching that. I've updated the config with those, accordingly.

Thanks. I need speed, and RAM, and USB3 ports out the wazoo, and only moderate gaming capabilities, for when I play--which isn't that often, these days. But when it is, I agree with our Beloved Leader, that a 64-bit system with plenty of RAM is the way to go. As I mentioned in an earlier thread, that would be where we'd head if we picked up a rig this year. And if it can run FE, and Skyrim, and Europa Universalis IV...? I'm happy.

FSX....Microsoft's Flight Simulator.  It can be as big as you ever want it to be.

Developing 'graphics' [skins] for just one plane sees me with 18 gig ....and 1,636 files..... that's 79 repaints ....

Addons for enhancing graphics....landscape....weather...real air-traffic, etc ....adds lots more...eg. 'REX' is 17gig....traffic is 9....scenery is 12 [and I don't have a lot of that] ...

An in-game screencap of one of my paints [used as a wall] ....

The artwork was from a Qantas 747 to promote the Australian F1 GrandPrix .... though that's not a Jumbo....it's a Tupolev Tu 114....