Anyone have any suggestions for the best Athlon XP MB to get for my nice new shiny rig?

I think that depends on whether you want all the bells and whistles (soyo dragon plus or MSI K7T266 pro2 ru) such as onboard network, usb2.0, onboard raid, 6 channel onboard sound ect.... or stabilty. It seems more people have problems with the boards with all the onboard stuff than without. I would suggest going for something with the KT266A chipset (ASUS, MSI, SOYO, SOLTEK, GIGABYE) , Nforce is interesting but its new and I've seen quite a few people having problems with them.
Personally I have a MSI pro2 (kt266a) that is rock stable . Check out this article on toms-http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q4/011126/index.html as well as the forums at amdmb.com as these are an excellant resource for first hand users feedback.
Hope this helps.

Athlon 1.33G
MSI K7T266 pro2
ati 8500
soundblaster live value
PCI adsl modem
ati tv wonder

Here's a couple nice boards

_http://www.epox.com/html/english/products/motherboard/ep-8kha+.htm
_http://www.epox.com/html/english/products/motherboard/ep-8k7a+.htm

Run both nice and stable

HotRod

Ya those were the ones I was looking for when I bought mine but they were all sold out(everywhere!) at that time and I needed one right away. Also the ASUS A7V266-E .

I have run my shiny new rig for two weeks now. We are talking shiny here - Lian-Li PC 60... Anyway:
Of course I am kinda biased here but I finally went for an [b:2af72942e7]ASUS A7V266-E[/b:2af72942e7] which to me represents a mix of performance, stability and funny stuff. This also reflects the problem: It is all about personal taste (sorting out cards with known problems first of course).
Pros: I like the Promise raid (prefer it to HighPoint), the VIA 266A chipset and the Award BIOS. The installation went flawlessly, the machine runs smoothly and the only BSOD so far occured when I experimented with different firewalls at the same time...:)
Cons: It is a little expensive, I don´t care for the inbuilt sound chip (CMI738/C3DX), but it works without problems. I can´t go below 1.70 Vcore but I can live with that.

If you are heading for a mobo with bells and whistles and good performance this one might be it.

.unicorn (also recommending *ttp://www.reviewbooth.com)


ASUS A7V266-E
Elsa Erazor X2
512 RAM
Palomino 1600+ (ie 1400)
Zalman CNPS5005-CU
3 x hdd and 2 x cd
winXP pro most of the time

Thanks for all of the help; let you know when i pick one.

I am running the Dragon Plus Board with an Athlon 1800XP. It runs smoothly without any glitches whatsoever. Here's a list of the pros and cons to help you decide on this board.

Pros:
1. Great documentation in the user manual
2. Upper range performance but not the fastest
3. Has more features than most boards
4. Price wise its a very good choice
5. Soyo is quick to respond to email for support
6. My system is running fine without a single problem

Cons:
1. XP driver support, can't complain but their still working on them
2. Soyo has something to be desired in the driver department
3. Their website is ugly but it works

Overall I would buy another Soyo board but I might have liked the Asus option too...

:confused:

Here's what I built:

SY-K7V DRAGON Plus
1800XP Processor
512 MB Ram
the rest of the components came from my old system but its still fast

I am using the Epox 8KHA+ and it is rock steady. Also this is a good mobo if you are looking to overclock your system. Overall, this mobo has got a lot of features and I will give it a 8.5/10 rating. The only drawback is it acts up occassionally, else no probs!!:D :o

i think asus makes good amd boards...