Advice on buying a new flute?

I need some advice on buying a new mobo?

• Hey all, I wana upgrade my mobo because im about to purchase my 2nd 8800GT......Ive got an Intel Core2 Duo CPU E8200 @ 2.66GHz, 4gig Team Xtreem 1066Mhz DDR2 and a couple of SATA II HDDs! Ive got no idea about SLI so any help in regards to buying a new mobo for Around $200 AUS would be great. Oh yeh i want both Pcie slots to be run at 16x......Thanx ppls

• Answer:

  Despite what the fanboys say there is virtually no difference between the 8x SLI configurations and the 16x SLI configurations. However, you definitely should not go cheap. A decent board will probably support 16x SLI anyway. This is a little secret in the gaming industry and pretty much all benchmark tests done comparing those 300 dollar motherboards to those 75 dollar ones confirm it. Its sad that people spend money without doing research. http://xtreview.com/images/nForce-680i-LT-SLI-650-SLI/680i-lt-sli-vs-650i-sli-sandra-1.PNG Example: I have an X2 6400 system with 8800 GTs in SLI, but its an 8x SLI motherboard. I get about 30 to 50 frames in Crysis on very high settings. My friend has a Q6600 with 8800 GTs in SLI, but with a 16x SLI motherboard. He gets about 35 to 55 frames in Crysis on very high settings. That's right, 5 frames. He paid twice as much for his CPU and about three times as much for his motherboard. And he and I aren't even sure if its the CPU or the board that is giving him those extra frames. However, my motherboard sometimes blue screens and his does not. That isn't because my board is 8x SLI, its because it is a cheap piece of $hit.