BIOSTAR 945P-A7A (8.0) LGA 775 Intel 945P ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Price, feature-rich bios, stability. Color scheme is attractive. Pure Intel chipset.

Cons: Only (1) IDE header. Two would have been nice, but no big deal... but that's me. if you plan on using (2) IDE removable drives (i.e. CD burners) and burning on the fly, it would be advantageous to have a separate IDE channel for each drive, as your throughput will always be sacrificed when working with two devices on the same IDE channel.

Overall Review: If you haven't already made the jump to SATA drives, now's the time. Due to the only IDE header's extreme south location, you may find difficulty landing the cable at your devices depending on the size of your case, plus you're obviously limited to (2) IDE devices. Your cables may end up being too short, so be sure to pick up something longer if you're going to stick with IDE devices. Either that or start springing for SATA hardware :)

Nonetheless, running core 2 duo E6300 @~2.4ghz on stock hsf and stock voltages. Board is rock solid at this setting, 8-hours of prime95 torture test and it didn't break a sweat. makes my old A64 setup seem like a commodore.

You really can't ask for more, especially at this price point. Recommended.

Pros: Good cheap board. Has almost everything I needed (see cons). Installs XP or Vista without needing install disks (fortunately because I don't have a floppy).

Cons: ACPI support is limited: I spent a few days playing with Vista, then XP and couldn't get S3 standby (fans off) to work in either. Turns out, according to Biostar, that they don't support it - only S1 and Hibernate. :-(
Vista installed but BSD'd an awful lot. I tried the very latest + beta drivers of everything. The onboard Realtek AC'97 appears to be poorly supported and seems to conflict with either of my two nVidia cards (both gForce 6 series). No such problems in XP.

Overall Review: Biostar were responsive on two counts: first a dead BIOS which Newegg RMA'd (they rock) and second on ACPI issue below. I wish newegg would list ACPI compatibility. Very few manufacturers provide it either.