not trying to start a flaming war but i've gone through 4 asus boards and never had a problem with any of them

i think you won't have a problem with any top board makers asus and abit, time and time again their boards always get top marks on all the computer hardware sites...they are the most stable, fastest, and most feature packed

with the via kt333 chipset, i havent seen many reviews of the abit boards, only asus and soyo...everytime asus wins

also the abit one doesn't support USB 2.0...but their newer line Max series does but a little pricey and lacks expansion slots...i think there is like only 3 on there

yeah for sure the abit's are cleaner around the cpu area but with care, u won't go smashing any resistors on an asus motherboard :-)