The Intel DG965WH or the smaller form factor DG965OT

The reasons for my recomendation are the following:

1) Well supported hard drive controller ICH8R and the ICH8DH bot support AHCI which has excellent support.

2) The Intel X3000 video chipset is well supported by X. It’s not an extremely powerful 3D gaming chipeset but should be more than enough to run a 3D desktop or the ocassional 3D game (like Scorched 3D). However, the fact that the Intel video driver is Open Source is very important.

3) The integrated NIC is a gigabit Intel 82566DC. This uses the e1000 driver which is a stable driver and well supported.

The only negative is the Marvell PATA controller. Some have had to issue generic-ide boot parameters to get their DVD/CDROMS working. Other than that I would recommend being careful what RAM is used with this board as it seems to be finicky. Stick to Intels recommended RAM list for this board.

An Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 would be a nice CPU match for this board.