As of November 2004, the most stable and compatable motherboard chipset is the Intel 875 family of chipsets (with any letter after 875). Another excellent choice is the 865 family. The 845 series was a good chipset, but due to its age and limited features (usually no USB2.0, no 800MHz FSB, dual-channel DDR RAM support, etc), it's recommended to purchase a newer 865 or 875 chipset.

We do not recommend the 9xx chipsets because they are new, virtually untested, and initial testing says they are not fully compatable with audio systems yet, but we're sure they will be in the future, as Intel is the leader in compatability.

SIS is strongly discouraged, we've seen almost 100% FAILURE rate with audio systems with any SIS brand chipsets for Pentium or Athalon.

VIA, ALI, and nVidea chipsets are discouraged for Athalon and Pentium, we've seen as high as 50% incompatability rate, and much lower performance than Intel chipsets.

Simply put, you can't beat sticking with pure Intel Pentium & Celeron & Centrino processors and Intel chipsets (not the brand new ones). Otherwise, you may opening yourself up to a world of problems.