[VictorMeldrew]

Hey guys. Bear with me and my total lack of decent hardware knowledge.

My motherboard/PSU recently died and I'm looking to replace them. Since my system's over three years old, I can't find any A8N-SLI motherboards around, so what would be my best bet in terms of an upgrade route?

I know Intel's range of Core Duos is the most sensible way to go, but I'm on a pretty tight budget, so I'm considering an X2 6000+, just to tide me over for a few months until I can afford a decent Core i7 system next year.

Assuming I opt for the X2 6000+, can you recommend a decent, affordable motherboard?

My 'nooby' searching has led me to the Gigabyte AM2 nForce 400 MATX A L G (http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...50000,43850000), but it seems that this doesn't support SLI, rendering one of my perfectly working 7900GTs useless.

Other searches lead to more expensive SLI boards (no thanks) and perhaps ATI boards, meaning my 7900s are both useless.

Would an ATI chipset motherboard couple with a HD4670 perform as well as one (or even two) 7900GTXs? Or would a slightly more expensive 9600GT coupled with a non-SLI motherboard work out better value for money?

Sorry if I sound like an idiot, but when it comes to hardware I'm relatively useless.

Pre-thanks for your time in helping me!

[Carbon]

E5200 with a P43 motherboard and a 9600GT/8800GT/9800GT would be the best solution here and probably not cost you all that much more. Sell your old cards :p

[thingie2]

I agree with carbon, unless you aren't going to be doing much on it till you get the Core i7 system, then you could just go for an onboard video card, but if you are planning on gaming on it, till you can afford the i7, then don't go onboard