I have about 300$ to spend on a CPU + Mobo. I need something fast in the i5 2500 sandy bridge range. I never plan to overclock or anything of that sort. what is a good reliable motherboard? Is there something with similar performance but runs cooler? Trying to find a good balance between performance and heat. I will buy the best aftermarket cooler. Will have a F4 samsung hd in it and a fanless video card of somekind. What is the best motherboard or cpu combo? is it worth getting a new age z68 motherboard or something like that. Little lost=(. any help would be great.

The best way to generate lesss heat and save money is to understand you don't need as much processing power as you think. Computing power ain't free.

Sandy Bridge has the best heat/power ratio in that performance range. Assuming prices in line with Intel's, the 2400 is the best value for the money, assuming you don't want a better IGP or ECC.
The board that waste the least power at idle are probably the Intels. But you might consume less at load with a board that can undervolt.

The low-power CPUs (the ones which have T or S after the model number) will cost you more and be less powerful. But their heat/power ration is better than the regular CPUs. How much better depends on the motherboard's undervolting ability and information about stability we don't have.

Z68 only makes sense if you want to use the SSD cache, something with a rather limited applicability if you're willing to manage your data rationally.

Since you've already decided on the core i5 2500, why not try to overclock? it is really easy. Overclocking really can't become easier than now. For my brother, it was simply a matter of finding the option in the UEFI (ASUS). You're practically guaranteed at least an additional 0,5 GHz, and you could definitely aim for a 1 GHz increase. My brother did it without tweaking any voltages or anything else, only the multiplier. The CPU still runs very cool.

About motherboards. Well, usually that boils down to personal preference.

is there a particular chipset that you recommend if i don't really overclock or not much and i don't go for the z68. z68 seems like a high premium. h67 p67 h61. looking at any of them here really

http://www.microcenter.com/specials/pro ... eNews.html

It doesn't make sense to overclock "not much". A regular 2500 can't be overclocked. You have to pay a premium for the overclocking ability and you need a Z68 or you have to use dedicated graphics.

H67 is cheap and allows the use of the IGP but can't overclock.

The deal right now is i2500k unlocked for 180 so i guess i'll be buying one that is overclockable. Is z68 the only one that is overclockable? I do plan on using a dedicated GPU unless you think the one on the motherboard is good enough. I have 2 2408fwp monitors that I do photography work on and minimal movies. No gaming really. Thanks for the help.

Z68 has integrated graphics and overclocking (I think... best double-check). P67 overclocks but disables integrated graphics.

The integrated is more than powerful enough: it's overkill if you don't game. However power is not the only thing that matters...
I've only used two monitors with one on VGA and the other on digital. I don't know how that displays handles VGA. If you need two digital outputs, make sure you can do that with integrated graphics (with one on DVI and the other on HDMI presumably). Maybe some boards support it and others don't. Some boards have a single digital output. Also make sure that resolution is supported in dual-screen mode. I've only used two screens at lower resolutions.

If you're not going to use the integrated 3D graphics or to overclock, you're really wasting money on a 2500K. That's the two features you're paying extra for. It's not the same as a regular 2500.

thanks

I emailed gigabyte and asus asking about the resolution.

If i am not gaming at all but going to do some photoshop and some slight video editing? you think getting a dedicated video card is worth it or the onboard should be fine assuming it will support the dual monitors?

The number of screens supported and the resolution are the big issues.
The only other problem I'm aware of comes with the hardware-assisted video decoding. Something about Intel outputting the wrong number of frames per second. Look it up if you want but it's a detail. You can always decode in software.

when you add up all the feature set of the z68 it is pretty hard to discount it and go with another intel chipset to me. There is way more to it than just the ssd caching. In fact this is probably the least important feature. The fact that you can use the onboard graphics and overclock at the same time is to me the main benefit, and to be honest the first boards out should have had it. z68 is such a important release that alot of companies are dropping alot of their other intel chipsets altogether. Anyway it allows you to use all the lucid virtu features also which I think is very important. I think it is cool to be able to use either the onboard graphics and save power, or use a discrete card if you need extra horsepower for gaming etc. It seems in the past you had to choose between a system with alot of horsepower, or a gimped system such as a atom etc with worthless graphics if you wanted to save power. I am glad to see that finally you can to some extent have both. The quicksync transcoding is also improved, and most z68 systems have a better bios than some of the earlier chipsets did. Most also that I have seen include a standard vga connector, dvi, and hd output. Two screens at once are def. supported, but I'm not sure at what resolution. I'm sure if you are a graphics professional or trying to drive huge monitors you would be better off with a videocard. For whatever reason gigabyte decided to be idiots and release a z68 without the video outputs, now I don' tsee any use in that board at all really. I think if I build a sandy bridge system I am going to go with something like the biostar tz68a+ which is a great deal at around 100 bucks alot of places.