Motherboard PCI advice

[rpjkw]

My 61/2 yo system finally gave went belly-up, so it's time to upgrade. My intention is to purchase and Intel i5-750 Lynnfield (1156) CPU. To that will be added 4 gig of Corsair RAM and a new nVidea graphics card (I haven't decided which at this time).

My question concerns PCI 'choices'. What the heck does the following mean?:

PCI Express 2.0 x16: 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16) as compared to this:

PCI Express 2.0 x16: 1 or to this:

PCI Express 2.0 x16: 2 x PCI-E x16 Slot (CFX x8 or SLI x8)

As I mentioned, I'll be adding two cards so I'll need two slots. I simply want to avoid buying a MB that will not accomodate the two.

A BIG thank you in advance for any and all advice. You can see how far behind the times I am, but I will not buy a 'box' off the shelf at Best Buy and 'hope for the best'.

Bob

[Trans_23]

I know the last board you listed will take two video cards. I have an SLI board myself. I have been out of the computer parts shopping for too long to be a good source though. Hopefully Ted will jump in and steer you in the right direction.

EDIT: Last I knew the video cards had to be identical to work in SLI. Not sure if this has changed since I bought mine a few years ago.

[rpjkw]

You're correct about two video cards needing to be exact. My post was a bit misleading in that I'll use only one video card rather than two, and one sound card.

The upgrade won't be cutting edge by any means, but it'll be much better than what I have now and, except for 15-20 fraps and carefully watching the memory, I'm quite happy with what I have (had).

Thanks for your input,

Bob

[ianhind]

You might want to consider going for the latest generation of i5 CPUs. I built an i5-760 system for my wife a couple of months ago but now an i5-2400 system would cost the same, be more up to date AND offer considerable improvement in performance.

As always with PCs, there is something better on the horizon but this time it seems to be without the price hike for the latest and greatest.

Comments from anyone?

Ian