50 YO nerd needs a new MOJO or is it MOBO

[ex_amd_chap]

I'm brand new to this forum so hello to you! 20 years ago I used to design 386SX & DX then 486DX motherboards for AMD, but moved on and now design interesting stuff. Sorry about the long post...!

I've just been looking at the vast array of new boards out there, with their bewildering choice of new features and am overwhelmed about what I need. I'd like to stay with AMD and ASUS. I personally know the older senior motherboard engineers and I believe they are still good at what they do.

BUT the people on this forum probably know better than anyone else about what makes a good board.

* I need parallel or LPT because I have legacy tech gear that is driven by the printer port (USB to LPT dongles aren't stable enough and don't cut it)
* I need at least 1 COM port (USB again isn't good enough)
* I need at least 2 legacy PCI slots for plugging in programmers and logic analyser cards.
* I need fast graphics for doing CAD work, but I don't think that I need the performance that gamers need from a GPU. On board GPU/VGA makes sense to me.

DDR3 is nice.
5000MT/s speed is also nice.
Overclocking features- yes please, especially the voltage tweaking. Chips are analog after all (yeah so everyone tells you that they are digital......). Finally the world has realised that there is a voltage window where a chip will exceed it's specifications.
Firewire is nice.
Floppy would be handy.....
IDE PATA is nice.
2 DRAM slots are ok - I don't run OS with big virtual memory requirements so 2G will easily cut it.
Phenom II x2 is probably adequate, with option to upgrade if BIOS has it.
AM3 not essential AM2+ also ok.
I don't care about the price.

I think I've narrowed it down to these 5, but there may be some others that I'm not yet aware of.
M4A78LT-M LE
M4A785TD-M EVO
M4A88T-M/USB3
M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3
M4N78-AMV2

Which do you think is best and most stable?
Any others?
Any issues on any of those boards?

thanks

ex_amd_chap

 

[Rule-R]

Welcome to techPowerUp! first of all! You will find your answer here i am sure, but it wont be from me. I was into AMD too long ago to be able to yell anything that makes sense. Happy MOBO (MOJO) hunting!

 

[Mussels]

my advice: get the highest model/latest chipset of those bunch.

for example, the 880 boards are a generation newer than the 785G boards - so narrow it down to those.