ASRock K7S8X series - This board was bought to replace a NEC board that was very painful. I bought it on the basis that it was so cheap that if it didn't work I could bin it without much loss. The result was brilliant, a really good board that ran without a fuss first time. It is the first time I have installed a motherboard too.

Asrock (US) produces great quality for the price and competes well against Taiwan and China on both counts. I was a PC Chips fan who never got stuck with a bad board but always heard good things about Asus and Asrock so when I found a real steal on an all-in-one board at Z-Buy (NY) I got an Asrock K7S41GX (like K7S8x but with Sis chipset) for $41 I was thrilled. It's 333 FSB, DDR333, 8x AGP plus 128-bit shared video was AMD state of the art for awhile and the price among the lowest I ever paid for a board with video. It is about 1 year old now and I use it with an AMD 2400 running 2003 Server at home, The 512 MB DDR, DVD+RW, and window case are nice yet I still have under $450 in the whole box. Asrock rocks!