Looking for Motherboard for Phenom II

So I'm really new around here and also new to the current generation of technology. My current system is an MSI k8n something something motherboard with an Athlon 64 3000+. I've got a whopping 1 gb of RAM (slow ram). In other words, it's time.

I started researching yesterday and I've looked into the Intel cpus and the AMD cpus and after much deliberation and back and forth, I've pretty much decided on a Phenom II, either the 920 or the 940. Price was the deciding factor. I've heard great things about Intel's processors, but the disparity in price has a bigger impact on me than the disparity in speed.

Where the decision gets harder to make is with the motherboard. I sometimes think the hundreds of different options for 775 sockets was part of the reason I chose AMD: their sockets and motherboards seemed more accessible to research.

I've decided on an AM2+ board (I think) because even though DDR3 is now barely more expensive than DDR2 here (unless there's something I'm not getting in the comparisons I'm making -- I've heard latency being mentioned but know very little about it), I'm not entirely satisfied with what's currently being offered on the AM3 socket in terms of processors.

This leaves me needing an AM2+ motherboard that will support a Phenom II processor, and preferably 1066 Mhz RAM. I'd like to be able to upgrade/expand RAM down the road, as well as potentially upgrade a video card and hard drives down the road.

Currently, I have 2 IDE hard drives (Western Digitals), a GeForce 7950 GT (512 Mb), and a 500W Ultra power supply (19A on the 12v line). I really need to keep these for now (can't afford to upgrade everything at once).

I've always been drawn to ASUS motherboards because I'm big on stability, and the last time I knew what I was talking about, ASUS was king of the mountain. Here's where I get lost:

I've heard that nVidia chipsets are less ideal than AMD chipsets for Phenom processors. Which sounds logical enough. But all the AMD chipsets I've found refer to crossfire or have onboard ATI gpus, and I've got that GeForce 7950 GT I need to keep. (which reminds me, I'm not a fan of onboard gpus...I like upgrade potential).

So far the best option I've found (taking cost into account, as it is a big factor for me right now) is the ASUS M4N72-E, which runs on an NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI chipset. I don't like the fact that any more than 4 GBs of RAM will reduce the speed ceiling to 800 Mhz, but I can't find anything that suits my needs more closely for now.

What I'm hoping the far wiser more experience community (that's you!) can do for me is:

A) point out where my assumptions/logic trains are faulty...cause I'm sure they must be somewhere

B) Recommend a super-awesome inexpensive motherboard that will magically solve all my problems and just be totally perfect for me and incredibly stable and easy to install and configure and allow me to keep the things I need to keep and upgrade them later.

Things to bear in mind:

I'm still running windows XP and probably won't be getting Vistas (I'll skip it and get Windows 7 when it's available, which is probably when I'll start considering expanding my RAM as well).

I don't upgrade the core guts very often (motherboard and CPU), so future upgrade potential there isn't big for me. I factored it in when I last upgraded and now the landscape is completely different. I suspect it will be again the next time I upgrade.

Stability is more important to me than uber-fast performance. I like a machine that will run smoothly with as few problems as possible better than a machine that runs a little faster but needs frequent tweaking/fiddling.

I appreciate any wisdom you can bestow on me. Thanks for reading the ramblings of a new guy.

Anything ASUS.

All the AMD chipset motherboards seem to reference ATI GPUs and Crossfire. I've already got a GeForce 7950 GT that I can't afford to upgrade now, and I'm not a fan of onboard GPUs.

Am I going to run into problems using a GeForce on an AMD chipset board?

No.