Need Advice on Cases and Mobos

[BobH]

Well, yesterday I installed the new PSU in my old Dell 4700 P4. All went well until I shut it down. When I tried to start it again, the startup hung. I powered it down and tried again only to get a message that the previous start attempt failed at checkpoint Iltr. I'm thinking that the mobo is dead and that I must finally part with the cash and do my upgrade.

I have the new Corsair 750W PSU.

I have 24GB of DDR3 RAM sticks.

I have an EVGA GeForce 9500 GT 1GB Graphics card from the P4 (old but should suffice).

I have an ATX case (though I'm thinking about replacing it, too)

I have Win 7 Home Premium 64.

That leaves a mobo and a chipset (unless I've missed something?).

I've more or less settled on the Intel Core i5 3570 Quad Sandy Bridge unlocked which will cost me about $220.

The mobo is still up in the air. I guess I have to first settle on a form factor. Because the old case that I have is an ATX case, I thought that I'd stay with that size mobo. The ATX size (not micro or mini) boards that I've seen seem to have more USB ports and more RAM slots, etc. Am I missing something here? Should I be considering Micro-ATX? What will I gain/give up going to micro? If I go micro, doesn't that mean that I MUST buy a new case? Without those answers I don't think I can proceed.

If I stay with the full ATX form factor, what mobo's should I consider? I'm set on going Intel which means that I'll have to have the LGA1155 CPU socket. I've looked at mobos until my brain is rattled. I know nothing about the 'best' brands or those to avoid.

I looked at the ECS Elitegroup mobos based on recommendations from friends. This one seems to be the lowest priced full ATX: ECS Black Deluxe P67H2-A2 . For a few dollars more I can get the Intel H77 on another ECS mobo. Should I be shopping other brands? What to do?

I welcome your comments and suggestions.

[StuartR]

I had a look in a PC Pro magazine and they recommended the Asus P8Z77-V Pro Motherboard.

[BobH]

Thank you, Stuart!

No doubt that is a great mobo but a bit spendy. It comes in at about twice the cost of the ECS.