Unsure of which motherboard to get with my Intel i7 6700k CPU

[chronodota]

Hey guys, what motherboard do you all recommend to go along with an Intel i7 6700k processor? Additionally, I will also need to buy some RAM for this setup (16gb). I will use my computer mainly to livestream an FPS game on twitch.tv and make youtube videos. I do not have much of a budget but I would really like to keep the mobo cost <$250. Any and all information regarding what mobo and RAM to get to pair with the i7 6700k would be appreciated.
Also, buying a new motherboard would mean that I need to re-purchase Windows, correct?
Please let me know if there is any way that I could get around this.
Thanks to all responses!

 

[chronodota]

Anybody know?

 

[Tradesman1]

For mobo, I'd look at the Asus Z170-A or their Pro Gaming. DRAM maybe the GSkill Ripjaws V in 2666 or so. If you are retiring your old rig and moving the Ddrive to the new rig, you can prob do that with no problems rather than buy a new copy - what's you old? Mobo, CPU, HD(s)?

 

[chronodota]

For mobo, I'd look at the Asus Z170-A or their Pro Gaming. DRAM maybe the GSkill Ripjaws V in 2666 or so. If you are retiring your old rig and moving the Ddrive to the new rig, you can prob do that with no problems rather than buy a new copy - what's you old? Mobo, CPU, HD(s)?

I have a GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD3 , AMD FX8320 8 core CPU [OC'd to 4.2GHz] , and Westerndigital 1 TB HD (wdc wd10ezex-00bn5a0). Also, how would moving the disk drive transfer my windows?
Thank you for the response!

 

[Tradesman1]

Generally, if moving the drive to the new build (make sure Win is up to date and you have backups of your data files (just in case)), Win will start, examine the new hardware, load default drivers for it, and then boot Win itself up, from there you load the latest mobos drivers for the new mobo from their web site, run a good registry cleaner (wise has a free version) then will need to reactivate Win - no biggie 😉

 

[chronodota]

Generally, if moving the drive to the new build (make sure Win is up to date and you have backups of your data files (just in case)), Win will start, examine the new hardware, load default drivers for it, and then boot Win itself up, from there you load the latest mobos drivers for the new mobo from their web site, run a good registry cleaner (wise has a free version) then will need to reactivate Win - no biggie 😉

Thanks! But why do you recommend the mobo and RAM that you did? I would like to know some reasoning behind it, if you dont mind.

 

[Tradesman1]

First off, I only build on three brands, Asus, the Rock and GB. Of the Haswell builds I've done Asus was the best with their BIOSs and overall quality both with the Z87 and newer Z97. Fo my initial Skylake I looked to Asus first, primarily the Z170-A as I did 13 builds on the previous A - the Z97-A and all the clients are thrilled with them, also looked at the Pro Gaming and in the end went with the Hero 9the Z87 Hero and Z97-Hero were both top ratd and best selling mobos - and I tend to push my rigs harder than most, i.e. am planning to get a 980Ti for my Hero/6600K but in the meantime have run a about 8 different GPUs on it, including SLI and XFire setups, have had 6 different CPU coolers on it, and a few different sets of DRAM. For the DRAM I grabbed a set of 3000 RJ V sticks while waiting for the Tri Z sticks to come out and they are great sticks, have had the opportunities to run a couple of Corsair sets now, a Kingston set, a couple RJ 4 sets and another (2400) set of the RJ Vs. For about anybody I'll recommend the RJ Vs, if you want slightly better performance then the Tri Z sticks