It's easy to find ATX Intel Socket 7 boards. They are fast performers, plus might have integrated Yamaha/Crystal sound and S3/ATI integrated video chip. Pentium Pro ATX boards are also quite nice and fast.
Not really a fan of Slot 1 solutions though, since it's not a problem to find much better board of that era. Same with most of the S478 era boards, except for RIMM based D850 series, because they have SB-Link./

Personally I like most older Intel boards but hate Intels use of Pheonix limited BIOS, the boards are generally made very well but the BIOS are designed for non techies and have just basic functions. Like buying a good HD TV but only getting one input. Just my opinion.....

Only have BX mothrboards both the Gateway and Dell variants.
I've no problem with the dumbed down BIOS. I'll take system stability over features every time.

but as I usually start with a basic system rather then building form the ground up I rarely get to pick my m/b manufacture

I don't believe I ever used an Intel motherboard.. I would like to have some of their server grade stuff though.

It really depends on what you want to do with the systems. Intel OEM boards have a deserved reputation for solid performance and solid stability, but (except with the much later Skulltrail boards) they tend to be very limited in terms of settings.

If you - like Horun - want to tweak, choose other vendors. If - like chinny 22 - you don't want to, it's fine.

I particularly like the Yamaha sound chips a lot of those boards have, for basic solid retro systems things like the AN430TX and SE440BX are great. Then again, if I could keep the stability and get more flexibility, as with say Asus P2B/P3B boards, I'd probably choose those over Intel, but if I had to choose one or the other I'd go for stability any day and then these boards are great.

Having to deal with stability issues resulted in me ditching a lot of motherboards in the past. Troubleshooting damaged/defective parts is frustrating enough, figuring out the quirks/bugs of a motherboard and trying to work around them is hell. To me, at least.

Until about a year ago I had an Intel Seattle 440BX board. In an attempt to clean out a bit I sold it, in favour of an Asus board.
Performance was about equal, but as said the bios did not let me play around with advanced settings. The Asus does, and send to be similar in build quality: good. No blown caps or picky about memory or CPU's.

Now for a few months I own an Intel Ninja CLASSIC PCI Expandable Desktop board.
( Got it's own topic over here: Rebuilding "Bakbeest" (486 Intel Ninja) )
The Intel 420EX seems reasonable fast, not really a winner but good enough. Also quite limited bios options and hold back by the maximum 33MHz bus speed.
Given it had been in commercial service for over 25 years without any failure (according to the seller) I think there quality is as good as it gets.

Interesting discussion. I noticed a couple of things when comparing my Abit ZM6 motherboard (Intel 440ZX chipset) to my Abit KT7A (VIA KT133A chipset).

1. On the VIA motherboard, my Voodoo 3 2000 displays artifacts in DOS games. This doesn't happen on the Intel motherboard.

2. The WSS mode of my Opti82c930 card won't work correctly in a couple of games (e.g. Tyrian) on the VIA motherboard. However, it works perfectly on the Intel motherboard. Same driver, same settings, same game version.

So I agree, there is something to be said about Intel stability, it's not just a myth.

I actually prefer Intel motherboards, particularly the early ATX ones. The ATX Socket 7 and early Slot 1 systems weren't too common where I live and were usually more expensive systems — most people still bought AT boards. So using such a motherboard is often a very nice way to get a really authentic and unique machine without opting for a brand. I don't buy big name systems because that would mean that I need a specific screen, keyboard, mouse, etc. With Intel I can mix and match without sacrificing authenticity.

However, keep in mind that most Intel boards are pretty limited. Socket 7 boards often don't like non-Intel chips and big hard drives. Slot 1 boards don't allow overclocking or out-of-spec CPUs (like 133MHz Coppermine chips).

Oh, and I seem to be one of those rare people who often have issues with Asus boards. Maybe that's because there is more of them. Maybe that's because they were an "overclocker's" brand, and previous owners stressed them too much.

Socket 7 boards often don't like non-Intel chips and big hard drives.

Not really. Intel boards can work with AMD K6 and Cyrix MII just fine. Yes, they are identified as "Pentium MMX", but who cares?

Maybe that's because they were an "overclocker's" brand, and previous owners stressed them too much.

ATX 430HX/TX ASUS boards do not offer anything special. Like most of them, they support officially only 75Mhz. Performance difference between Intel and other brands is also negligible.
There's one caveat with SDRAM though, for maximum performance on Intel 430TX/440 boards you need memory sticks with SPD which includes CL2 timings or don't have SPD chip at all. Intel boards will apply timings from SPD table, but most of the PC133 sticks quite often had only CL3 timings in SPD.

I remember the 440BX as being the gold standard during that period for overall performance and stability. I was always jealous of that, trying to get things to work properly on my Super Socket 7 K6-3+. Those VIA and ALI chipsets were terrible in comparison.

Lack of BIOS settings for tweaking can be largely overcome by having the right utility like TweakBIOS for DOS or WPCREDIT for Windows. I use both for different setups and have had good luck.

I've used a couple Intel boards throughout the years. My most used one was using an Intel D815EEA which came with a funny story as (iirc) it came with the socket latch broken at the base, so it was impossible to install or remove a CPU from the socket. This was my first ever motherboard repair that went beyond the standard stuff like setting jumpers and replacing a battery 🤣
The floppy drive connector never worked but this was an important rig for me for several years till I finally got myself an A64 (which by that time was already pretty old as Q6600 was mainstream at the time).

It had few BIOS options but it worked perfectly fine for me and in the end I prefer stability over a little bit of extra speed. But obviously I will tweak if there's only benefits to it.

I had also build a rig around an intel i865 board (board made by Intel but I can't remember the name of the board) but I never used that rig much beyond maybe some basic benchmarking.

Personally I prefer having few BIOS options to having artificial CPU incompatibility like some Intel i815 boards not supporting certain CPUs because Intel deliberately blocked the boards from booting when one of these blocked CPUs was inserted -_-

Like I said: I like Intel brand boards. Have a few (Advanced/ATX, VS440FX, MU440EX, D856PD, DQ77MK, plus more) and they all run very well. But when Intel removed simple things like Num Lock and Floppy Swap from their boards BIOS it just irritates me 😁