Intel chipsets are generally more stable and compatible than other chipsets.
However in our current class of technology, chipsets using Socket A (462) for processors perform better (Duron and Athlon XP or ThunderBird pros). Intel obviously isn't going to make a motherboard to support the processor of its main competetitor (unless they wanted to do something like the MTH issue with the 820's
)
So we have other chipset makers like VIA, SiS, ALi, etc....
Not to say that these are bad or anything, but they generally have more compatibility probs than Intel's chipsets.
With the recent amount of mess that's been going on (though I can parially, if not mainly attribute this to the KT333 boards as being shoddily designed), it seems Abit and Tyan are currently leading up. And other companies that used to be the King, like Asus, slipped up with the last 2 chipsets they vendored.
There are different things to take into consideration, like what type of RAM you want, and things.
Best thing to do is get a good warranty, that way if you buy something that doesn't work, you can take it back to the store and bitch to either get it fixed, or get you a working board.
If you are going to buy now (and say, not wait for AMD's new Hammer 64-bit CPU's), I like the 266A by Abit. I have their version with no integrated features (except for a HighPoint ATA-133 RAID, it is part of VIA's newer SouthBridge chip)
If you wanted to do Intel, you could go with an 815 chipset and get a Tualitan (a newer different version of the Pentium 3, kind of like the Athlon XP is really a ThunderBird with the Palomino core). You could do this over getting an AMD based processor, but you'll miss out on DDR RAM and FSB among other things (you'll be straight 133).
I'm pretty sure their Tualitans go at least as high as 1.3GHz
Asus did well on the 815 chipset (they messed on the 333 and 266A).
Tyan often vendors multi-processor motherboards.
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