Need Purchase advisement

[TranceParadox]

I'm a first time builder, and I am not planning on any overclocking or sata use.

Just one stick of 512mb pc3200 and an AMD XP 2700+ and an Fx5200

Now then,
After looking at dozens of brands, I found this BIOSTART “M7NCD PRO nForce2 Ultra 400

Reviews look nice, should I buy?

If not, what board would you suggest, under $65.

 

[Nubius]

Just to let you know, the FX 5200 card won't offer you very good gameplay at all. It's a 'mainstream' card opposed to a 'performance' or 'enthusiast' model so it'll be missing some features that a card like the FX 5700 will have, basically the instructions for rendering. You can read up on the differences at www.nvidia.com click products, then FX FAMILY then read down about the 5200 vs 5700 and up.

Also I don't know about BioStar, I haven't heard anything of them, so I don't know how good of a board manufacturer they are so I really have no opinion on them.

I can say that the MSI K7N2-Delta L is another good Socket A board as well as the NF7-S2G since you don't plan on overclocking. Both boards should be around your same budget price