HELP! Need space betwen GPUs!

Questions are as follow and explanations are below them:


1. What 1155 socket MOBO has spectacular quality, great price, very reliable, great for overclocking, supports 1866 RAM, and has 3 PCIE slots so I can leave space between two different cards?


2. What MOBO will work best/fit my parts while overcloking RAM, CPU, and GPU(s)?

Using this cooler for CPU: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065


3. Is it better to purchase IDENTICAL GPUs to avoid conflicts while setting up SLI?



Just looking to put the cherry on the cake persay for my build so to speak but I need a MOBO reccomendation if it's no trouble. Something with a lot of features, SPECTACULAR quality and reliability, and support for SLI and resistent to higher temps (obviously within opperating specs of a 2500K processor/660ti GPU). 

I'm looking for the most budget friendly, built with quality parts, 1155 socket MOBO that won't crap out on me when I open it and put it on the box (no I never made the mistake of putting it on the non-static outside covering like a lot of people do). NewEgg has terribad reviews for tons of products and I can't find one that is overall well reviewed. It's all mixed between "My MOBO didn't work" and "Great MOBO" or "Didn't get my MOBO in the mail."


I'm looking to get 8GB of 1866  RAM so I'll need a board that can support that. Hopefully one with a decent interface so it can automatically detect my RAM frequency out of the box, although I'm pretty sure that's rare or non-existent. 


I'm also Overclocking my RAM a tad, and using MSI's software to overclock my GPUs.


Getting this GPU, and likely the same one again on 6months-2years from now: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127696 : MSI GTX 660ti


I'm gonna want to SLI this card in a year or two so I may need 3 PCIE slots at full speed so I can space out my cards, or maybe a PCIE slot not at full speed but tell me what you think if I'm going to get performance problems if it's only 2.0 etc. for the 2nd card.


When you SLI, to avoid troubleshooting should you SLI the EXACT same card or would going with a standard regular plain old reference GTX 680 be just as safe?

I know it's a lot of questions, but these are specific questions that are VERY difficult to have answered by anyone but professional/experienced builders. Any advice even if not related to MOBO would be happily appreciated.  

You need identical GPUs for SLI, but you don't need identical cards. As long as it's another GTX 660 TI then it will work. Another thing to keep in mind is VRAM and clock speed compatibility. If one GPU has 2GB of VRAM and the other has 4GB, then both cards are only going to use 2GB of VRAM. The same principle goes toward clock speeds. If one GPU is clocked lower than the other, then both GPUs are going to operate at the lower clock speed.

I personally just like to buy the same exact card, because it ends up looking cleaner in your build that way anyway.

I'm pretty sure any board will support the Hyper 212+ just fine. It shouldn't block any ram, since it's not that wide of a cooler. It is fairly tall though, so just keep that in mind.

As for the motherboard, I don't know what your budget looks like, but these are some I would recommend:

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128544

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128545

ASUS P8Z77-V Pro: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131819

ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131818