I've been in the process of planning my own cutom built computer and have been doing research into that. One thing I would really like some help on here is any advice and recommendations for any motherboard I should get. I have a pretty good idea of how I'm going to build my computer with the other components, but it is the motherboard that I'm still wavering on. It's really the most crucial part of the computer to build the other parts around. I already know I want to get an AMD 64 cpu, likely a 3200 or 3500 and I'm looking to going with an ATI video card over that of Nvidia. I'm looking towards building a mid range system, not a budget system, but not a dream system either...just something in between. I do want to get a socket 939 board and I've been mostly considering ASUS, but I would be open to any other brands that anyone might suggest. I'm looking for reliability in the board and I want room for expanding and upgrading my computer. There are some recent ASUS boards with SLI and PCI express that I've looked at,but some of those new boards I've read reviews by people who have had some problems with the board such as the BIOS. So I'm a little uncertain about getting the latest ASUS boards because of that. Would I be better off right now going with a board that has PCI express or an AGP slot for graphics? I know the PCI express technology is apparently relatively new and there may be some issues of reliability of the technology right now and availability of graphics cards for those slots so I don't know about that. I'd be fine with AGP right now. Any tips on that? So that's basically all I need to know. I'm just looking for a good quality brand of motherboard that is reliable and supports socket 939 and AMD 64. Features like onboard audio aren't important to me because I would just get a sound card anyway. Cost actually isn't an issue because I'm willing to splurge on a more expensive motherboard if needed because I want to build my system around it as it's really the most important component. USB 2.0 support would be nice. Overclocking would be a nice bonus,but not that important to me. With that, I'll end this now and be waiting for anyones suggestions.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-151&depa=1

If you will need to purchase a graphics card anyway then it only makes sense to go with the PCIe board. Which flavor is up to you. There are basically 3 versions available. Asus isn't the only brand available either. PCI express is a new technology that, like SATA for harddrives allows for a dedicated bus to run the device in the slot. There are different flavors of PCIe slots. The standard for graphics is 16x, which indicates the data path width. Then the other PCIe slots can be anything from the 16x down to 1x. Below are three examples of different MBs using PCIe and socket 939. If you'll notice, the Foxxconn has 1 PCIe 16x and 1 PCIe 1x. The Chaintech has 1 16x and 2 1x. The MSI has 1 16x, 1 4x and 1 1x. Of course the SLI boards have 2 16x, allowing two fideo cards to run in tandem, sharing the work. This is just a small sxample of what is available. I recommend a MB with more flexability so in a year or two when there are PCIe cards with features we can't think of now, you may be able to use the card to the fullest. With all the integrated hardware on MBs today there is not much need for many regular PCI slots but I personally wouldn't limit myself on PCIe. That brings up one more issue. ATX versus mATX form factors. Both will fit into a full tower but ATX won't fit really small cases. Keep that in mind. mATX have less slots overall. Go to Newegg.com and search by catagory and pick AMD mboards. Then on the left choose socket 939 and no other choices. Then scroll to the MBs with nForce4 chipsets. You will get an idea about the variety available.

I just realised that the specs I referred to above are still on my desktop. Here they are. FOXCONN "NF4K8MC-RS" NVIDIA IDE: 2x ATA 133 with RAID 0/1/0+1 Slots: 1x PCI-E x16, 1x PCI-E x1, 2x PCI CHAINTECH NVIDIA nForce4 Slots: 1x PCI-Express X16, 2x PCI-Express X1, 3x PCI IDE: 2x ATA 133 up to 4 Devices SATA: 4x SATA with NV Raid 0/1/0+1 MSI "K8N Neo4-F" NVIDIA nForce4 Slots: 1x PCI-Express X16, 1x PCI-E X4, 1x PCI-E X1, 3x PCI IDE: 2x ATA 133 with NV Raid 0/1/0+1 SATA: 4x SATA with NV Raid 0/1/0+1

MSI's neo4 sli will be in my next rig.think ill do that this summer.(honey I need more $$$} lol Amd 64 3000 msi neo2 platinium 1gig ddr 400