[PLUG] Recommendations for Motherboard

[Rich Freeman <r-plug@thefreemanclan.net>]

Perhaps slightly off-topic, but since Anandtech seems to no longer do
decent system build guides (they might release two a year without any
real head-to-head comparisons on the components), what would people
around here recommend for a motherboard to build a new AMD-based
desktop/server?

I'm leaning towards a fairly cheap quad-core Phenom II-based system.

My only real requirements are:
1.  Needs to support a fair amount of RAM but nothing exotic.  I'll
probably start with 4-8GB.
2.  Needs to have at least 4 SATA ports (with support for SATA II at least).
3.  Needs to have at least one, and preferably two PCI slots.  (Yes,
PCI - if I don't have that I need to factor in an extra $60+ for a
dual tuner card as this is my Myth backend.)
4.  I need to have VGA output at some point for my monitor.  That
could be a card, or it could be integrated.  I could care less which
if the price is right.  Any chipset designed in the last decade will
more than meet my requirements, as long as I get reasonable 3D
hardware acceleration on linux.
5.  All essential features are linux-compatible.  I run Gentoo so I
can run a fairly up-to-date kernel.  I'd prefer avoiding binary
modules, although I don't have a big problem with NVIDIA.

I can always just hit search in Newegg, and will no doubt do so.
However, if anybody has done the research recently and has something
to share let me know!  Thanks!

Oh, I'm open to CPU advice as well.  I'm more of the school of
spending fairly little and just upgrading more often, so I'm not
really interested in whether one $800 CPU edges out another.  I'm sure
I won't have to spend much to outperform my current Athlon 64 3200+
with 2GB of RAM.  Maybe I'll even try KDE again, though honestly xfce
has been working great for me...  :)

Rich
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