Asus and MSI are both good cards IMO. Gainward GF 4 cards have been having ram problems, so avoid them.
I thought it worth mentioning that the GF 4 Ti cards use a LOT of power, so make sure you've got a 350W power supply. The Gigabyte GA7-RXP KT333 boards *might* be having problems providing enough power to the 4400 and 4600 cards. I've been browsing several forums recently gathering info for my next upgrade and it seems there might be an issue here. Since this board won Tom's Hardware's KT333 roundup it might just be because there are a lot of these boards out there though... Typically people don't post in a forum if everything works perfectly, but it still seemed excessive to me.
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I personally might go with the Abit NV7-133R board (nForce chipset) when I upgrade my system in a couple weeks. ( I bought a MSI GF 4 Ti 4200 card w/ TV out for about $180. I can't afford to spend $399 on a video card for only a < 10% additional performance boost right now. ) I can't get ahold of the Soyo board, but I have seen it and it looks very nice. I was considering the Asus A7V333, but the combination of high price and a batch of boards with bad bios chips has made me think twice. The nForce 415D boards (which don't have the integrated GF 2 MX video ) perform at about the same level as the KT 266A boards and only the slightest amount slower than the KT 333 boards. They also have a proven stability record, but I will say they are not overclockable at all if you like doing that. I'm leaning toward this Abit board because it has an ATA 133 raid controller and USB 2.0 support. (Along with integrated ethernet.) It should have excellent integrated sound, but Funked seemed to have a problem with crackling in the mic input, which I'm hoping is an isolated issue or possibly resolved by now... If not, I'll spend $65 for an Audigy card, which would also get me a Firewire port.
It's really a tough choice between a KT333 board or this nForce board. It's kind of a coin flip type situation between the Asus KT333 board and the Abit nForce board, but since I used the MSI nForce board for another system I built back in December and really liked it I'm leaning toward the nForce. VIA boards are certainly a lot more tweakable and have really improved in the stability department since the "old" K6-2 days. I just prefer to go with something with a proven stability record though in the end. I'm really trying to do a cheap (sub $700) upgrade, so the fact that I can get the Abit nForce board for under $100 is a big plus. The Asus board is certainly a tweakers dream though, it has everything and over 30 jumpers to tweak anything you'd ever want. That's ok for me personally, but since I might be doing a couple more systems in the near future; I'd rather go with an easy setup board.
Reusing my 45GB 7200 rpm IBM harddrive, CDRW, DVD, and floppy drives and buying the Abit nForce board, 2 256 MB sticks of PC2100 Corsair memory, the GF 4 Ti 4200, an XP 1800+ (at least) will set me back around $500. If I add a nice Enlight case and 340W Enlight PS it will be around $575. This gives me some extra cash for the Audigy if I choose/need to use it, or would allow me to afford an XP 2000+ or 2100+.
