The past 12 months haven't been the best time to go motherboard shopping if you were a buyer hoping for a clear, unambiguous arrow pointing at what products you should buy. Intel users, admittedly, have had it worse than AMD buyers, put Sunnyvale's own gradual transition to Socket 939 and the introduction of PCI-Express have created their own uncertainty for potential customers. Anyone who's spent time watching the computer industry knows that there's an ebb and flow to platform evolution and standardization; choosing the best balance between economics and platform longevity is difficult when multiple standards are simultaneously in flux.