It's just that I'm so out of touch that I don't know quite where to start.

Well, in *that* case, let me help you by telling you about the *wonderful* 8086 I have for sale!

Seriously, I kicked around some of the same issues recently, and my decision was mostly economy-driven. I wanted as many integrated IO/Bus elements as I could get (to make room in PCI slots and to have 2 separate sound cards) but didn't want to spend a bundle. I would have liked integrated 1394 (doubly so since my Adaptec Duoconnect seems to be dying on me) and I decided I'd try an Athlon (for the first time).

I had good experiences with Asus in the past. For some small reason that escapes me, though, I bought a Shuttle mobo, a KT333 chipset-based AK38N. I did not get either Asus' or Shuttle's more bleeding-edge Athlon mobo based on the KT400 chipset because it looks like Linux support for many of the features just ain't fully cooked yet, and Linux is now what I am running 95% of the time.

I *was* also tempted by the SATA RAID on some of the KT400 boards, but I already had a 3Ware controller I could recycle. The Shuttle has been great so far (sample size = 1). I bought the mobo, a "sweet spot" Athlon (1700?) and a 512MB stick of PC2100 RAM for under $200 from KnowledgeMicro.