Help Please!!! Asus Sabertooth Z77 VS ASUS Maximus V Gene VS ASRock Z77 Extreme6 ? Or any other...

Get the Z77 Sabertooth. It's well within your budget, 25£ under it actually, it looks absolutely gorgeous and it performs exceptionally well, and it provides lots of features.

Sabertooth is a great clean mobo and very easy to use.

To me the difference isn't really worth the extra money! Right now you can get the Maximus for 160 shipped from newegg, but it is open box.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131830R

I might just buy one, if you are overclocking a TON go with the sabertooth, as I have heard it provides stable power, and the 2 fans on it keep it a little cooler.

Newegg has a great comparison tool and carries all of those boards.

The big question is: what features do you want?

All Z77 chipsets have overclocking, Virtu, PCIe 3.0 with IB, USB3, etc. They also have very similar performance. It comes down to features and brand loyalty.

I looked at all three that you listed and was waiting for the Maximus V Formula. I gave up waiting for the MVF and decided on the Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3, since time is running out on return policies. I wanted a full featured motherboard that can fit 2 triple-slot GPUs (ATX minimum). I also want 16x:16x PCIe (not 16x|8x:8x) to help future proof things (PLX chip). If the board had Bluetooth+Wireless that would be bonus points. The Sniper3 has a PLX chip so 16x:16X. It's an EATX board so plenty of space. It also comes with Bluetooth/Wireless 1xPCIe card, Killer NIC+Intel NIC, and some sort of Creative sound chip.

I looked at the Sabertooth for a very long time before deciding against it. I know I didn't like the assist fans, especially the one that draws IN air and dust. Without the assist fans, I am positive the chipset temperatures would be higher than without the armor. Audio is from a Realtek ALC892 when similar boards have at least the ALC898. No PLX chip so 8x:8x in dual GPU mode. Intel NIC is good, and you can run FanXpert2 on it. Not a ROG board, though.

The ROG Maximus V Gene is only mATX, no PLX chip, no WIFI/Bluetooth included, but it does have SupremeFX III audio. It probably has the best performance and overclocking of the 3 boards you list.

The Asrock Extreme6 is nice mainstream board without any really special features. It has Firewire, good amount of USB/SATA connections, fully supports VT-d, etc. Basically great for a general purpose computer or a home server.

You might also want to look at the Asrock Z77 Professional/Professional M instead of the Extreme6 if you can look beyond the Fatal1ty BS.

just a fyi: using current cards in SLi or xfire PCIe 3.0 @ 16x/16x isn't any different than 8x/8x but the difference shows up when you run 3 or 4 cards. Maybe dual GTX 690 cards would show a performance difference too?