First-ever Build: Low Budget, AMD Box for home/photo work under Linux

Lets get the main details out of the way first:

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: this week or next. BUDGET RANGE: up to 400 (with shipping, before rebates)

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: home (movies, music--not an audiophile), work (word processing, academic applications, often many at a time), photo work (gimp and bibble), need wireless card (G is fine.)

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse.

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Newegg. COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA

PARTS PREFERENCES: CPU: AMD (though can be convinced otherwise.) Mobo with decent onboard graphics (but with PCI 2.0 to expand), Roomy case (my very first build after all)

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Unlikely either.

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1680x1050

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Most intense activity I'll likely be doing is photo management/editing work under GIMP / Bibble. Will likely dual boot with Win7, though main operating system will be Crunchbang Linux (a lightwieght, Openbox, distro with a Ubuntu base.) Hope for expandability (so no PSU's with a single sata connector). Stability is a premium, and prefer silent/low power options where available. The cheaper, the better. (Grad students don't make a lot of money.) This is going to be my home box, to supplement a eeepc while on the run.

Moving off an aluminium Core 2 Duo 2.0 Macbook with integrated graphics...hoping to get a lot more for less, and get rent money off the sale of it. I say this as to use the Mac as a baseline for thinking about performance increases.

Look forward to seeing what people come up with. A preemptive thanks.

-Barnes

Antec Two Hundred Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811129070

Antec earthwatts EA380 380W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.0 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817371005

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.265971 $79.94 (Case + PSU combo)

AMD Athlon II X2 250 Regor 3.0GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103681

GIGABYTE GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AM3 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128397

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.272119 $155.99 (CPU + motherboard combo)

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL9D-4GBNT - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231253 $70.99

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 20f3%20500 $54.99

SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 22X DVD-R 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner LightScribe Support - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827151188 $31.99

ASUS WL-138g V2 IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Wireless Adapter Up to 54Mbps Wireless Data Rates 64/128-bit WEP WPA2 (including 802.1x, TKIP, AES) - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6833320022 $13.00

Total - $406.90

The EA380 is a quality unit, but I probably wouldn't reuse it in a future build. Power supplies lose capacity over time. I picked that PSU because it will power the above system for a low price with the combo, not with future upgrades in mind.

A micro-ATX board isn't really any harder to work with, it just has a few less PCI slots. I also picked that particular board because Gigabyte is a quality manufacturer and the price was right. It's not easy to put together a $400 build using quality components. The above build was about as low as I would recommend. You could get a motherboard that uses DDR2 RAM, but it wouldn't save you much and would limit future upgrades.

Good luck with the build!