If you don't overclock, get the ECS K7S5A for about $70, if you can find it. Some venders are out of stock. It supports both sdram and ddram. Cdr express had it in stock until recently, but may have a new shipment in by now. If you don't need raid (for multiple hardrives), I would personally get the Abit KG7-Lite (about $140 pricewatch). You will get many opinions about cooling, but most agree on one thing, use arctic silver 2 thermal paste for whatever heatsink you get. If your heatsink comes with a standard pad, you can use it one time, but if you remove the heatsink for any reason, you will have to scrap off the leftover pad material, and apply thermal grease. I use the Radio Shack white paste (about $2). Apply a very thin coat on the cpu core (center), and you don't have to cover all of it, it will spread out when you install the heatsink. I use the thermaltake volcano 5 (rated up to 1.5 ghtz), but it is difficult to install without damaging the socket tab on the motherboard. Check out Tom's hardware guide article on 26 coolers, or this website for more info. Choose one that is easy to install, and pay atention to the noise level of the fan. Some are very loud.
