Hi everyone,
 
I'm looking for some opinions on a good motherboard to purchase. I plan on running BFG 9800 GT cards SLI. I have had great luck with my MSI 975X V2 Platium, but I would like dual PCIe 2.0 slots that run at 16x. I was checking out the MSI boards ( P7N SLI Platinum & Diamond) and they seem to run SLI at 16x slot 1 & 8x slot 2. I have a $150 price range for the board.  
 
I'll be running a Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (upgrading to a quad core later on),  4 GB of DDR2 PC6400 RAM, Creative XFI Fatalty Sound Card, upgrading to Vista 64 as well.
 
Is it imperative for me to replace my current board? Is PCIe 2.0 that much faster? I mean, I'm running a single 7950 GT OC card now...I'd assume running 9800 GT SLI even in PCIe 1.0 would be a night and day difference from what I already have.

This is what I'd get in your situation, wanting to SLI but still on a budget.
 
It's over $150 but it's still a decent price, this board also OC like a champ too.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813188026

I agree spring the extra and get the 750i. If you can't make that work then get the EVGA 680i.

Thanks for the input. Looks like a really nice board, will more than likely go with that. I've heard great things about EVGA's boards.