Whats the best motherboard right now

My main computer broke down a couple weeks ago (I'm using my 5 year old one right now) and I need to get it replaced soon. At first I was going to go with my normal AMD/via routine, but there's two things that bug me.

1. People say intel is good now, prices have gone down and it has sse2. How good is sse2? I surf the web, use office xp, and play games. Will it really help?
2. The Kt333 looks like a pretty bad deal. Plus via threatened all those MB manufacturers. I don't like that, and I really don't want to buy any of their chipsets. Via has kept a stranglehold on the entire oem MB market that they almost look like the only available choice. When I browse price comparison sites, or oem vendors sites, the via chipsets are always listed first and are advertised the most (come to think of it I've never seen any other ads for other chips besides intel).

For what it's worth, I've gone through 2 Asus A7V333 boards in less than a month. Both died on me. When they ran, they ran fine. Speed wise, I found no difference between running my RAM @166 with CAS at 2.5 vs running RAM at 133/CAS 2 on my KT266a. If you have the extra $, look towards a P4 system. Just my thoughts.

Give me Convenience or Give me Death!