In my experience, I tend to stay away from the smaller company boards, yes, they can be cheaper, but that's often the problem. Try to find yourself a nice Asus, Abit, or Aopen board, or even an Intel board. The chances of a capacitor leak are much lower on higher quality boards. I've been using Asus boards for years, and I have never seen leaky capacitors on them. (Except after a freak lightning storm, but that was deliberate, experimentation with lightning is fun, but always have a good ground wire :P)
Whatever your decision, remember one thing, only pick up what you are comfortable with, if you have second thoughts about the hardware, put it down, and think on it for a while before buying it.