Help me out deciding on hardware

[trademark.designs]

I know there are probably a ton of threads started like this, and i apologize making a new one, but any help given will be greatly appreciated.

 

I've been toying with the idea of building a hackintosh for months now, especially since my poor early 2006 iMac is starting to fade on me. My problem is every time I look into it, there is always something that makes me nervous about spending the money to end up with a system that doesn't work the way I want it to.

 

I have a few requirements for a hackintosh build. Ideally I'd like to run an ASUS mobo, but I know the usual answer is to run a Gigabyte board. If that is the most compatible and easiest to get running with no performance losses, so be it - but I just tend to like ASUS boards more. Hopefully a board with triple channel memory. For CPU, I want to run an i7. For future proofing, getting a board with USB 3.0 would be great. Plan on running a high end video card for the same future proofing mentality (I want this box to run for 5 years without issues) so I'm looking at the high end of nVidia - 470, 480, etc. Other than that, I've got no ideas on what specifically to get.

 

So help me out. Point me in the right direction for a solid build with very little tweaking required (i.e. less chance to have something blow up on me). Budget isn't a huge issue, as long as we don't end up in the stratosphere.

 

I know Lifehacker just recently did a build that looked very simple to get running, but they used a lower CPU, mobo, and video card than I would be happy with. If someone comes along and tells me what hardware I can upgrade to and still do the exact same steps, even better.