I spent so much time looking at CF motherboards,
You can narrow your search to X48/X38 or P45 for Crossfire. These are intel chipsets that will support the E8400 you mentioned. I believe there are a few Crossfire MB's that support AMD processors, but those are not mainstream.
I don't have a clue about SLI boards.
Nvidia chipsets support SLI. LIke the 790i, 780i, 750i. So Nvidia chipsets like these do not support Crossfire with ATI Radeon GPU's. Nvidia cards like the 260GTX are supported in SLI configuration with Nvidia chipsets.
What is a cost effective motherboard to pair with a 260 GTX?
The Intel P45 chpsets (Any MB manufacturer) will support one 260GTX. ATI Radeon cards are supported and in Crossfire iif you have two with the Intel P45 chipset. The P45 chipset is the price/performance model currently. Check newegg for price of MB's with the Intel P45 chipset.
I don't mind going AMD processor either if I must, but I will most likely go with a E8400.
Ha, finding a reasonablly priced MB with support for an E8400 is pretty simple. Newegg has a boatload of them.
What are the diffs between 790i and 780i/770i...etc?
The price and a little research.