(I'm assuming the picture of the ECS board on their website is accurate.)
The first thing that strikes me on that ECS board is the very low number of capacitors for power filtering. The power supply on the board for the CPU also appears to be only 2 phase with inadequate (as far as I can tell from the picture) filtering. What does this mean? It means that if you have a power supply that has a significant amount of ripple on its outputs, your system may crash under heavy load. The CPU power mosfets are also going to run very hot with only 2 of them.
Take a look at the Asus "budget" A7N8X-X and the ECS board:
Asus A7N8X-X
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socketa/a7n8x-x/overview.htm#ECS
http://www.ecsusa.com/products/n2u400a.htmlJust look at how empty the ECS board looks.
Some other minor things I'm seeing:
1. The AGP slot is too close to the memory sockets. You probably can't change memory without removing the video card.
2. The floppy connector is in a terrible spot.
3. Onboard LAN is optional AND uses a VIA chipset solution. The nVidia onboard Lan has very low CPU usage, unlike the VIA solution. Since LAN is optional, be sure you are comparing prices to the ECS board with onboard LAN.
4. No provision on the ECS board for a second serial port. The Asus board has a header (and you can get the card for about $5 or less at most computer stores to add the second serial port, as the -X doesn't come with the card. The standard board does.)
The ECS board does have an Spdif out header, so you could link to a home receiver if you could find an Spdif card to plug into the header.
The ECS board at least takes advantage of the ATX 12+ (4 pin) connector. It probably only uses it to power the fans plugged into the motherboard though. Unfortunately this connector is too close to the CPU socket, and on the wrong side.
