A FWIW in case it's useful...
What you might want to consider before doing a win7 re-install is taking advantage of all the lessons learned out there since your motherboard was brand new, collecting the best drivers & so on in your spare time -- you'll probably find a lot of info, enough that collecting this stuff in many shorter sessions actually works out better, keeping you from getting lost in the weeds & maintaining your sanity. RE: USB 3.0, do research the chip(s) used as well as USB 3.0 on your m/board... Some USB 2.0 devices just won't work with USB 3.0, &/or the on-board USB 3.0 on some m/boards was/is almost unusable, so might want to take the time to investigate -- you might not need/want USB 3.0 at the moment, so turn it off in the Bios before you install win7, or you might find the best route is to pick up a USB 3.0 card so you'll have it ready, again installing win7 with on-board USB 3.0 off. You can of course turn on-board USB 3.0 off later, but that won't remove every trace of the drivers & possibly companion software that were installed.
Traditionally the best way to build a PC is to try booting the motherboard with the minimum of parts [cards, RAM etc.] installed, often before it's installed in the case, clearing the Bios 1st & if it boots to a WinPE-type environ, updating the Bios as/if necessary. Next you add the OS [Windows], & once that's done & updated, start turning stuff on in the Bios like the on-board audio etc., and once the onboard stuff is working stick in any cards, one at a time, using the latest or best drivers for everything, updating firmware if needed, adding remaining RAM. Next is tweaking Bios settings, on AMD boards paying particular attention to RAM settings. Note on AMD boards I have had to use Automatic settings more than once, for both the overall & individual settings to get in the ball park before I could adjust some RAM settings manually, then backing off, making individual settings less agressive if they caused problems in Windows -- while a bit of a hassle, once setup that way the systems were very stable & performed well.
Most or none of that is absolutely necessary 100% of the time, & there's a lot you won't have to bother with when the system's been up & running for some time, but the basic principles apply to a re-install... Adding & updating a driver most often gives you different results than adding the updated driver to start with -- starting with the updated driver is better, since you don't have any portions of the older stuff, that presumably didn't work as well, left laying around. You've got a better chance of avoiding the Microsoft update hosted driver if Windows is already installed when you turn whatever on or add whatever card. Adding stuff one at a time you're more prone to notice any problems, say a decrease in performance, telling you that you've got a problem, & letting you fix it -- when everything's added at once you don't have any way to compare it, nothing to compare it to. When/if you have a problem, if you installed everything & had everything turned on in the Bios, you're often stuck looking at the forest wishing you knew which tree needs your attention.
For PC drivers themselves, always go to the OEM if/when possible, e.g. Intel for Intel, AMD for AMD, Realtek for Realtek etc. These companies design/produce the chips, creating a reference board design & drivers that their customers [the retail brand on the box] can use. Companies selling motherboards, graphics cards etc. **may** tweak the OEM reference design, but that's rare. When a OEM releases a new driver version, ideally companies like Asus, MSI, Gigabyte etc. will approve & post it almost immediately, but that's Far from usual reality... In practice it's more a "when someone gets around to it" sort of thing, & then only while that product is still pretty new, e.g. I've found MSI lags by several months if they decide to bother. Try to stay away from drivers supplied by Microsoft -- OEMs don't trust the company & will usually not give them access to their full code... I've seen 1st hand ATI graphics drivers from Microsoft that not only broke Windows on a system using ATI graphics, but made it near impossible to add working drivers from ATI.
When/as possible the best way to determine what chips are used on your motherboard is to look at the motherboard itself... I have a lighted magnifier that I use on new m/boards when I 1st pull them out of the box, then I write down the info on the chips themselves & stick that piece of paper in the board's manual -- on a PC that's already assembled I'll tape a copy inside the case. You can try to go off the data the manufacturer publishes on their site, but they might run out of one brand/model chip, may make running changes between major revisions etc. [That happens with most any manufactured product] Windows itself only knows what driver's installed, so if/when the wrong driver's been used, it'll report the wrong device or chips -- the same goes for software that says it'll tell you what hardware's installed. That data's probably right, but not always -- it can show the wrong version for whatever chip(s), & possibly the wrong brand.
Windows holds onto driver info in the Windows\Inf folder & in the Windows \System32 \Drvstore folder -- by holding onto I mean Windows can default to using a driver it finds on your hard drive that you don't want it to use... if you experience that problem you'll have to remove references to that driver from one or both [it doesn't hurt to search the entire Windows folder either, e.g. using the file name for a known driver file or setup file]. .NET holds onto stuff too -- in rare, extreme cases of graphics driver problems I've had to [& read reports of others having to] remove .NET entirely & re-install. Diver info, good & bad, can also be buried in the registry. If you don't know how to manually update drivers through Device Mgr. learn how, as it's sometimes your only hope.
Sometimes a driver will only be available in a setup file -- if it doesn't work running that setup file you might be able to get to the driver files themselves using 7Zip, Universal Extractor, or scouring the temp folders while that setup file's running -- you're looking for one or more .inf files along with the driver files, which may be compressed [if so they're often named with a trailing _, e.g. .dl_]. Oftentimes Windows will want to install the driver for the wrong device -- remember it doesn't know for certain what the actual chip is or who makes it -- so rather than browsing to a folder with an .inf file(s) you'll have to select the hardware manually in Device Mgr., sometimes unchecking the box to show compatible drivers.
When you add in the hassles, difficulty removing drivers/driver files I talked about in an earlier post, you might see why I don't completely trust apps/services like Driver Magician & avoid driver agregation sites as possible. I'll try almost anything after a fresh backup -- I'm using ATI leaked beta drivers right now -- but I'd rather get drivers from an OEM site because there's less risk that someone(s) got something wrong, or that the drivers are infected & so on. *To me* the convenience of running one app or visiting one site instead of 1/2 dozen doesn't outweigh the added risks, but that's me.
