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Motherboard
The ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition motherboard I have in My Super PC is at the top of the class in Athlon 64 AM2 motherboards. The quality and stability of the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe are extremely high. In addition, it provides high performance and a rich feature set. It received top marks from Anandtech, and was awarded the Gold Editor's Choice by Anandtech.
Click on any picture to see it enlarged. 
Here are the contents of the retail box. The contents include SATA cables for those using SATA hard drives as well as IDE cables for those using IDE hard drives. The IDE cables are bundled into rounded cables rather than the usual flat ribbon cables, which should help improve airflow inside the computer case. 
Here's a closeup of the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition motherboard. A motherboard is compatible with one type of processor. Which processor type is identified by the "socket type". There are a number of socket types on the market made by both AMD and Intel, so it's important to know the best one for building your own computer. Some socket types may be on their way to being discontinued, others may be too new to try, and others may be best suited for purposes other than desktop computers.
For AMD Athlon 64 X2 processors, the motherboard must be compatible with "socket AM2". For Intel Core 2 processors, the motherboard must be compatible with "socket LGA775". Both of these types of motherboards use the same type of RAM, namely DDR2 RAM. In fact, except for the processor and CPU cooler, any other component compatible with one of these types of motherboards will be compatible with the other, including the hard drive, video card, sound card, and so on.
Several manufacturer's make the chipsets that comprise the essential functionality of a motherboard, including NVIDIA, Via and ATI. The motherboard chipset preferred by most computer enthusiasts due to price, performance and stability is NVIDIA. One motherboard socket type, such as a socket AM2 motherboard, will have more than one NVIDIA chipset that can be used in making the motherboard. The particular chipset used affects the cost and features built into the motherboard.
What makes any motherboard "good" is foremost its quality. A motherboard which is marginal under load or flaky under certain configurations is one to avoid, regardless of the features and chipsets that it supports. It's important to have a motherboard that is reliable and stable with any configuration of processor speed, with any number and type of RAM modules, and with any number of add-on cards. After quality, the motherboard should be able to live up to its full potential in terms of performance and capability.
Good motherboards worthy of consideration should include lots of built-in features. This should include support for SATA hard drives, PATA hard drives (which are the standard IDE ATA hard drives), USB 2.0 ports, IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ports and onboard audio. In terms of features, motherboards most often distinguish themselves by the number of USB ports and IEEE 1394 ports they support, the number of SATA and PATA drives they support and the quality of the onboard audio. The fact that the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard has built-in WiFi support is unusual, but can be very handy.
Most good motherboards come with support for RAID. RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is most frequently used by computer enthusiasts to boost the performance of the hard drive by using two hard drives in parallel, called RAID 0. The full capacity of both hard drives is used when they are configured to run in parallel. But for most PC users, the hard drive does not get used enough to make it a significant factor in the performance equation. RAID is appropriate for heavy disk usage environments, such as servers or video editing. For home use, RAID might be fun to try but the extra performance is not going to be worth the cost of the extra hard drive. This is even truer given that modern hard drives come with a built-in cache, usually either 2MB or 8MB in size, so disk accesses that hit the cache are virtually instantaneous anyway. RAID motherboards still support single hard drive operation. An excellent description of RAID and what it can do is here. Other common configurations of RAID are RAID 1, which uses one hard drive as a mirror image backup of the other, and RAID 0+1, which combines RAID 0 and RAID 1 functionality.
Most good motherboards provide either five or six slots for add-on cards. There can be one or two PCI Express slots to be used by the video card(s), plus one or more PCI slots for PCI add-on cards, plus one or more slots that supports some speed of PCI Express. PCI Express slots and cards can be made to support varying speeds, expressed for example as x1, x4, x8 or x16. A PCI Express slot and PCI Express card must be of matching speeds. For more information, here is an introduction to PCI express.
One trend that has continued with the 64-bit motherboards is the inclusion of more and more built-in features into the motherboard. One new feature is called PCI/AGP lock. This is something overclockers will want. Even if you don't overclock, you'll probably feel better that you have a full-featured motherboard if it's there. What it does is this. When you overclock your front-side bus (FSB) on motherboards without a PCI/AGP lock, you are effectively overclocking the I/O buses as well. PCI/AGP run at 33/66Mhz at stock. So if, for example, you were to overclock the FSB from 200Mhz to 220Mhz, the PCI/AGP buses could be then running 42/75Mhz. Many components freak out when their frequency changes like this, leading to nasty problems, such as total hard drive corruptions or other hardware failures. The PCI/AGP lock fixes this problem by locking those buses at their standard speeds.
Most good motherboards will support two video cards running in parallel. On motherboards built using an NVIDIA chipset, this feature is called SLI, for Scaleable Lock Interface. When a motherboard has this feature it can support two SLI compatible NVIDIA video cards running together in parallel to increase performance. However, it is not a popular feature to use. Performance is better and cost is lower by using a single, more powerful video card rather than two of the next cheaper, less powerful video cards running in parallel. Motherboards based on an ATI chipset may be equipped with Crossfire, which is SLI for ATI video cards.
Best Motherboard Choice
Both AMD processor compatible socket AM2 motherboards and Intel processor compatible socket LGA775 motherboards are commonly used today when building your own desktop computer. Here are the ones I like.
Socket AM2 Motherboards for AMD Athlon 64 XP Processors
First up of the motherboards I like is the MSI K9N SLI Platinum, which is an NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI chipset motherboard. Here are the highlights.
Supports any speed of socket AM2 processor and up to 8GB of DDR2-800 RAM.
Support for SLI at x8 speeds.
Two PCI Express x16 slots (the second x16 slot is compatible with PCI Express x8
Two PCI Express x1 slots
Three PCI slots, one of which is intended for use for communications such as a wireless network card
Very good onboard sound provided by the RealTek ALC883 sound chip and supporting up to 7.l speaker configurations
Two IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ports, one in the back of the case and one for the front of the case
Ten USB 2.0 ports, four in the back of the case and six for the front of the case
Connections for up to two IDE devices, such as PATA hard drives or optical devices, supporting ATA 133 interface (133 MB/s)
Connections for up to six SATA hard drives supporting SATA II interface (300 MB/s)
RAID support for SATA II hard drives using RAID configurations 0, 1, 0+1 and 5.
Dual Gb LAN
Next is the motherboard I'm using in My Super PC, the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition, which is another excellent choice with even more features. It is configured with an NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI chipset motherboard.
Supports any speed of socket AM2 processor and up to 8GB of DDR2-800 RAM.
Passive cooling support.
Support for SLI at x16 speeds.
Two PCI Express x16 slots
One PCI Express x4 slots
One PCI Express x1 slots
Two PCI slots
Very good onboard sound provided by the SoundMax ADI AD1998B sound chip and supporting up to 7.l speaker configurations
Two IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ports, one in the back of the case and one for the front of the case
Ten USB 2.0 ports, four in the back of the case and six for the front of the case
Connections for up to two IDE devices, such as PATA hard drives or optical devices, supporting ATA 133 interface (133 MB/s). If used for PATA hard drives then RAID configurations 0, 1, and 0+1 are supported. But in most cases I think the IDE devices would be optical drives.
Connections for up to six SATA hard drives supporting SATA II interface (300 MB/s)
RAID support for SATA II hard drives using RAID configurations 0, 1, 0+1 and 5.
Support for two additional SATA hard drives supporting SATA II interface (300 MB/s), one internal and one external.
RAID support for the two additional SATA hard drives using RAID configurations 0 and 1.
Dual Gb LAN
One Wireless LAN supporting 802.11 b/g
The ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition costs more than the MSI K9N SLI Platinum. The passive cooling support it includes is rather unique. It still requires a CPU cooler for the processor, but the passive cooling help that is built into the motherboard allows the fan to run that much slower and therefore that much quieter. Personally I find this feature very appealing. The extra cooling will help out overclockers, too, if you're into that sort of thing.
Another difference you may notice is that the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard provides faster SLI PCI Express slots than the MSI K9N SLI Platinum, but in real-world terms this translates into very little extra performance.
The ASUS motherboard gets the edge over the MSI motherboard in terms of built-in sound support. The sound provided by the ASUS motherboard is a little better and costs a little less in terms of processor utilization. But the difference is not so great to make it a substantial reason to choose one motherboard over the other. Those mindful of such things will still want a Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card for much better sound with much less impact to the CPU.
Some of the extras provided with the ASUS motherboard could come in handy and save some money. The built-in support for an external SATA hard drive is nice. So is the built-in support for wireless LAN. Not only does this save money by not having to purchase an add-on card, but it also allows a PCI slot to remain free for some other use. In a real sense this means the ASUS motherboard has one or two more PCI slots than the MSI motherboard. In addition, one of the ASUS PCI Express slots supports the greater x4 bandwidth, compared to x1 on the MSI.
However, the MSI K9N SLI Platinum is top-notch, high quality motherboard for an excellent price. In terms of features and performance, it should satisfy almost anyone.
Socket LGA775 Motherboards for Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad Processors
The ASUS P5N-E SLI uses an NVIDIA nForce 650i chipset.
Supports any speed of socket LGA775 processor and up to 8GB of DDR2-800 RAM.
Support for SLI at x8 speeds.
Two PCI Express x16 slots (in SLI mode the slots run at x8 speeds)
One PCI Express x1 slots
Two PCI slots
Very good onboard sound provided by the RealTek ALC883 sound chip and supporting up to 7.l speaker configurations
Two IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ports, one in the back of the case and one for the front of the case
Eight USB 2.0 ports, four in the back of the case and four for the front of the case
Connections for up to four IDE devices, such as PATA hard drives or optical devices, supporting ATA 100 interface (100 MB/s)
Connections for up to four internal SATA hard drives supporting SATA II interface (300 MB/s)
Connection for one external SATA hard drive supporting SATA II interface (300 MB/s)
RAID support for SATA II hard drives using RAID configurations 0, 1, 0+1 and 5.
Single Gb LAN
The ASUS P5N32-E SLI uses an NVIDIA nForce 680i chipset.
Supports any speed of socket LGA775 processor and up to 8GB of DDR2-800 RAM.
Support for SLI at x16 speeds.
Two PCI Express x16 slots
One PCI Express x8 slots
One PCI Express x1 slots
Two PCI slots
Very good onboard sound provided by the SoundMax ADI AD1998B sound chip and supporting up to 7.l speaker configurations
Two IEEE 1394 (FireWire) ports, one in the back of the case and one for the front of the case
Ten USB 2.0 ports, four in the back of the case and six for the front of the case
Connections for up to two IDE devices, such as PATA hard drives or optical devices, supporting ATA 133 interface (133 MB/s). Most would use optical drives as their IDE devices.
Connections for up to six SATA hard drives supporting SATA II interface (300 MB/s)
RAID support for SATA II hard drives using RAID configurations 0, 1, 0+1 and 5.
Dual Gb LAN
These two motherboards are not all that different. The ASUS P5N-E SLI is substantially less expensive and most would find it's feature set sufficient. The ASUS P5N32-E SLI offers better onboard sound, a second Gb LAN connection, more USB 2.0 ports, and that's about it. It's actually the less expensive ASUS P5N-E SLI that includes built-in support for an external SATA hard drive and four PATA drives, instead of two, and more people would probably find these variations preferable.
The faster SLI support and faster ATA support of the ASUS P5N32-E SLI does not translate into any real-world performance improvment.
64-Bit Software Versus 32-Bit Software
While 64-bit hardware is the accepted norm, the proven software of today, including the applications, operating system and drivers, is 32-bit software. Windows XP is a 32-bit operating system. It will be some time before 64-bit software reaches the same level of maturity. In the meantime, I wouldn't go near it, not if you want to use your computer rather than figure out what's wrong with it. The 32-bit software of today will run on the socket AM2 technology and socket LGA775 technology just fine.
My complete recommendations for building a computer with quality components at unbeatable prices is on my home page at Build A Computer Like My Super PC - Cost To Build A Computer. Here again are the recommendations for a motherboard!
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