PC/Network gurus.....good stable reliable affordable server board?

[Soap]

Not for me, but a potential client side job.
Cost efficent and stable and reliable and some room for little growth.
Gonna be doing/setting a small home/office network environment.
2 Servers (1 Main and 2 Web) and 3-4 client machines, this is where the potential growth will occur, more client machines later.
Server boards, will get the most memory, about 4-6gigs worth to start with.
Clients will be getting 3gigs to start with.

I already know what network hardware (router, switch, patch panel and etc) I'll be using, so I'm good there.
Looking for a micro atx format, with decent onboard audio and video.
Meaning, the onboard video has got be strong and good enough to run Vista 32 and 64 environments flawlessly. This is important to go with on board audio and video for costs efficiency.
Intel or AMD doesn't matter.

I've been at newegg looking at some small mirco atx with onboard audio and video, pretty darm overwhelming. Alot of products and reviews to sift through. Any help and suggestion are appreciated. Thanks gang.

[Carbuff]

Not to be a wise ass or anything but nothing will run vista flawlessly. It is a steaming pile. Especially the hd audio drivers for onboard audio. I really wish it would work correctly, I like it, but it continuously hangs with programs not responding, etc. Ive "upgraded" 3 of my machines to xp because of this. Luckily I had the good sense to order my daughters dell laptop with xp and not vista. I dual boot my machine with vista for web stuff cause it looks cool but always use xp for anything important. This of course is just my experience with vista.

[thetroy]

Vista is trash for the most part. I use it on my laptop for the tablet features, but my desktop will stay XP for the forseeable future.

[Newc]

Agreed. Vista is a retard's OS. If you don't know a damn thing about computers and need an operating system to make all the "tough" decisions for you, like whether or not you can access your MyDocuments folder, then Vista is for you.

If you have more than one braincell, go with XP.

[Soap]

Vista?
Guys, this is what the CLIENT wants to run.
I've already tried to discourage the use of it.
Not that it matters any, but I don't Vista at/in my home.

[DonP]

Vista?
Guys, this is what the CLIENT wants to run.
I've already tried to discourage the use of it.
Not that it matters any, but I don't Vista at/in my home.

Client might have requested it, but YOU will be on the hook supporting the POS when it doesn't work.

[Spivonious]

Geez, a lot of Vista hate on this board. I've been using it (home premium x64) since December and my wife upgraded her laptop to it (ultimate x86) in March. All around more responsive than XP and I have a hard time not having the start menu search and the live window previews when I use XP at work.

Anyways, in response to your question, any motherboard with the Intel G35 chipset will be fine for you. The onboard video handles Aero with no problems, and it takes all of the latest Intel processors. I haven't seen a board with subpar onboard audio in a long time, so no worries there. If stability is a concern, I usually go with the Intel branded motherboards, but as long as you stay away from the overclocker-geared boards (Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, DFI) you should be safe.

I do wonder why you're planning on using Vista for the servers. I'd look more at Server 2008 for that. Vista has a lot of fluff that is just plain useless for a server.

[Soap]

Client might have requested it, but YOU will be on the hook supporting the POS when it doesn't work.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention I never thought of that.

[Soap]

Anyways, in response to your question, any motherboard with the Intel G35 chipset will be fine for you. The onboard video handles Aero with no problems, and it takes all of the latest Intel processors.

That's the kind of info I'm looking for, thanks.

[Soap]

I do wonder why you're planning on using Vista for the servers. I'd look more at Server 2008 for that. Vista has a lot of fluff that is just plain useless for a server.

I don't plan to use Vista on the Server machines.
Client (He) wants Vista for the clients machines.
My bad, sorry about that.
He wants windows 2003 on the Servers...although I'm trying to talk Him into running Linux on the Servers. Novell/Suse has an excellent enterprise software for servers.
Its used exclusively at work.
Stellar stuff when combined with Zenworks.