Motherboard dead, what now?

[bpmz]

So my motherboard of 3 years has died on me. It was a socket 775 and is now pretty much being phased out with the new 1366 or 1156 socket.

I used to do a lot of gaming with this PC, but since I have graduated from university, I just haven't found the time to play video games anymore. The most graphic intensive tasks I do nowadays is watching 720p or 1080p videos on my computer.

Which brings me to my dilemma, should I get a new socket mobo and intel i5 or i7 CPU? Or should I just find a socket 775 mobo and stick with the components I already own?

My processor is a Q6600 and it has served me well so far, I don't know how big the performance gap is from the i5/i7 CPU. Additionally, I have ddr2 RAM - will it work with most of the newer mobo's?

One reason I may upgrade is so that I can hook up three monitors. Since I am only able to use one video card on my dead mobo (nVidia 8800GTS), I can only use two monitors at a time.

Is it possible to find an SLI mobo that will be able to use my current 8800GTS and the newer nVidia 400 series? Will my old video card bottle neck my system a lot?

 

[saint19]

Hi bpmz and welcome to Tom's hardware forum.

1- i5 and i7 has much better performance that the 775 and the q6600 that u have, but if u keep in mind that the next year comes out new technology (Sandy and Bulldozer) a new rig now could be a little waste of money IMO.
2- The i5 and i7 mobos only support DDR3 RAM so ur current DDR2 can't be used in the new rig if u want build one
3- U can not SLI a 8800GTS with a GTX4xx series since are different technology.

I'd go with a mobo 775 and wait until the next year for build a new rig.