Stuck between boards

It's me the dumb newbee again. Looking at a couple baords to go at. Need something that is newbee overclocker friendly and stable. I'll be running a sapphire 9600xt 256mb and 512 of 266 DDR Ram and a Barton 2500 CPU. first choice is Abit NF7 S second choice is Gigabyte GA 7N400. Are these Mobo's anygood or would you recomend anything else help please dumb newbee patawon in need of a jedi master.
SGT Coop

epox-8rda3+? but the nf7 is good to...

First off, welcome to the forums. I hope you enjoy your stay.

Now for my recommendations. The boards that I would recommend are the Shuttle AN35N-Ultra, the Abit NF7-S, and the DFI NFII Ultra Infinity. I recommended the Shuttle because it is the best budget overclocking nForce2 board available on the market today. The NF7 Non-S is also good for budget overclocking. As for the NF7-S and the Infinity, those boards are the top overclocking boards for the Socket A platform. The Infinity has been especially good as of late (some have hit 250FSB and higher on this board). The NF7-S is the classic choice for Socket A, although the very latest batches dont perform as well as the earlier boards, but they are still very good.

Hope this helps you make a decision.

TY This is a great help Being married my wife keeps my budget to meir pennys. So any budget board will help.
TY SGT -Coop-

TY guys for the info I just ordered the NF7-S from newegg and a barton 2500 retail Are the fans that come with the CPU alright for now? if I spend anymore money this month the old lady will kill me.

Yes, the stock Athlon cooler will get you by for awhile without problems. Just remember to scrape the thermal pad off the heatsink, and use some thermal paste such as Arcic Silver 5 or Ceramique. That alone should improve temps a few degrees.