We have had really good luck with intel cards on Mode 1, but any of the other modes have gone flaky after heavy use for a few months.  Nothing to terrible, but you have to reboot the box. It has only really been a concern for our VPS hosting boxes, but once we switched everything to mode 1 we haven't had any problems. If you do not mind rebooting every once in a while, it seems to not be a problem. Some of our dedicated server hosting customers have reported really good luck with Mode 2. I think our VPS hosts probably see alot of diverse traffic and maybe that is the crux of the issue. Either way we use it on all of our boxes and it works great!

Rokabear Tech Support