Some of the lower end boards do not give good performance. Also, the Intel 820 memory chip set has problems that show up on many of the boards. Some of the boards have clocking speed selections for both the CPU and memory. Nearly all of these boards, once selected, can be CPU upgraded. This makes the selection of one of the higher end boards a good investment for later modifications.
Special consideration is needed in the case power supply as the higher end CPUs are installed.
Athlon 650 MHz or above require 300 watt case power supplies for optimum performance. Care in the selection of the video card may also be a consideration. The other main consideration may be the case itself. The high performance motherboards are all ATX power supply connected. Older cases may have AX style power supplies.