Motherboard Recommendations - Thanks in Advance

[DynaGlide]

Folks,
Looking to upgrade after many years running a PII 350 (Yikes! :Q). Looking for some suggestions. I've had great luck over the years with Asus, but am a little leery of their lack of tech support/RMA issues. I'm a skilled technician, but I'm still a little concerned about a company that thinks so little of their customers as to offer no tech support. I've been looking at the Abit IT7 MAX2 V2 lustily...

Here's what I'm looking for in terms of features:

Pentium IV, HT support (now or via BIOS update)
533 FSB
DDR
On-Board Parallel ATA RAID support, plus standard ATA100/133, of course
On-Board 100 Mb Ethernet
On-Board 5.1/6.1 sound
SATA (w/RAID) would be nice, but by no means essential (future upgrade)
No on-board video
AGP 4X is fine, 8X a bonus
USB 2.0
FireWire optional, but a bonus

As I only upgrade once every few centuries, price isn't an issue; I'm much more concerned with quality, reliabilty, and stability.
I couldn't care less about overclocking, etc. Face it, if I've been ok with a PII 350, I'm certainly not power mad.

Your thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.

 

[mechBgon]

Lemme throw this one on the pile for consideration too: Intel D845PEBT2 Blue Mountain 2 The next page has the feature list. I think the 3-year warranty might be a real draw for you.

 

[DynaGlide]

Soooo close, and I love the idea of an Intel board, but SATA RAID only, no standard parallel ATA RAID. I've already bought my drives, so I'm afraid I'm committed to 80 pin ATA for now.

Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[TonyB]

i'd get the ASUS P4PE w/ Gigabit lan with serial raid ATA, firewire and usb 2.0

it doesnt have onboard parallel raid though.. I dont know much about the Abit IT7 MAX2 so i cant say much about it.. I too have had great luck with the ASUS over the years and the way i see it is if you have great luck with it, why not stick with it? as for the PATA RAID option, if you really need it, you can always put in a cheap PCI RAID card...

Intel boards have a reputation for stability, but since i do not have much experience with Intel boards I cannot give you any first hand experiences..