At the very reasonable price of $157, ECS's L4IPEA2 is a great little board. The attractive purple PCB features hardened, rounded corners to avoid damage, while the small form factor would make it ideal for a compact system. Lacking AGP 8x, bearing only two DDR slots and no FireWire connectivity, it's not the most feature packed-board, but it's cheap and basic, and the layout is good. Perfect for an upgrade or budget machine.
This article appeared in the July, 2003 issue of PC Authority.