Budget AM2 mobo for a non-SLI/non-OC system?

I'm looking to put together a relatively cheap system to more or less replace the guts of my current computer (and eventually turn over to my wife for her WoW system). I've decided on an Athlon 64 X2 4000, but I'm not sure what motherboard to get.

• I will never overclock this computer.
• I have no intention of running SLI.
• I want something that's well-built and reliable but not expensive because it comes with premium features I don't need (i.e., gigabit ethernet).
• Firewire would be nice to have, since I have a Firewire card reader.

I remember that when I built my current computer, XP couldn't detect my SATA hard drive because of some peculiarity with my chipset until I found drivers it could load via my floppy drive. It'd be nice if the next motherboard I buy would not have this problem, but I don't really want to reinstall XP on this system anyway, if I can avoid it.

Thanks!

Perhaps I should have mentioned that I'm going to put an 8600GT into the system.

I'll recomend: K9A2GM-FD/FIH

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php [...] at2_no=171

Would this motherboard work well with this processor?

Just didn't know if the fact that it's AM2+ compatible would be an issue with that processor.

It's that "supposed to" part that I was worried about. I've spent most of my time researching Core 2 Duo stuff, so I more or less know what I'm looking for there. With AMD stuff now--I don't have any idea what Northbridge I want, much less how the AM2 socket variations work. Hence this thread.

Yes!

You can use any am2 cpu with am2+ mobo! There is no restriction of that. but you cann't use am2+ cpu(phenom) with am2 mobo!

P.S. look at my system specs, I'm using AMD X2 4800+ with MSI K9A2 CF (AM2+)

I suggest you go for am2+ mobo, because you can upgrade your cpu later with phenom

This is ultimately my wife's budget computer. My computer--whenever I can afford to make it--will be a Core 2 Duo E6750, a 9600GT, and Vista Home Premium (among other things). It will be a ground-up system. This is basically a band-aid for me until I can build myself a new computer. If I could build a system with better performance without spending more than $400 with tax and shipping--I'd do it in a second. But this is at the extreme end of the cheap scale; I mean, hell, I'm not even looking at the enormously better Athlon 64 X2 6000 and I think that says where my goals are with this system.

Furthermore, my brother just built himself a new system and offered to give me his broken eMachine with an Athlon 64 3500 (Socket 939), 1GB PC3200 RAM, and PCI-E eVGA 6600GT. I'd be tempted to just buy a new Socket 939 motherboard for it (the motherboard is probably what's broken) to get the very minor processor upgrade and finally get out of AGP on this system. But I don't think it'd be worth what a decent Socket 939 mobo would go for on like eBay to end up with so dated a system when getting this thing at least a dual-core processor would be under $400. I don't completely dismiss it, though, because my wife really only plays WoW and I can live without Bioshock, Crysis, and Mass Effect (when it comes out on PC) until this summer when I'll hopefully be making more money.