I was thinking of replacing my 2 home machines. Both have ASUS 478 socket MoBo's, with a 2.8GHz Northwood and a 3.2GHz Prescott. I was reckoning on a couple of Conroe's for improved DC performance and lower power consumption.

The LGA775 socket has been around for a while now, I was wondering if it was a good choice to upgrade now. Last time I upgraded, (to 478), the 478 seemed to die shortly afterwards Seriously limiting my upgrade opportunities. I don't want the same thing to happen again.

The LGA 775 socket has another year and a half or so before it will be replaced, I think.

To future proof get a board that supports quad core, DDR3, and FSB of 1333/1066. As far as I know, Intel for the immediate future will use that socket.

Penrynns (45 nm) will be the last iteration of Intel CPUs on LGA775; next uArch (Nehalem) will require new socket. that will happen sometime in late 2008 (according to roadmaps)

I don't think there will be any 8-core CPU on LGA775

Does a MoBo that supports DDR3 necessarily support DDR2? I saw the reviews here of DDR3 and with the current offerings, 1333 DDR3 is hugely expensive and performs relatively poorly against 1066 DDR2. Can I put DDR2 RAM on a DDR3 MoBo?

Yes

Short, sharp, succicnt. Rare. Qudos.

NO!

The notch configurations of DDR3 and DDR3 are different.

Those mobo's that support both have two different sets of memory slots.

geofelt is right & g-paw wrong.
Whilst the chipset may support both you need to have the correct DIMM slots to use it.

Keep in mind, even though Intel may keep the socket, you might need a new revision of the current LGA 775 mobos to run penryn. It may or may not be the case, it was with Conroe to Netburst.... just a thought.

wes

If intel puts the memory controller on die, as they are supposedly working on, this time next year or year and a half, the 775 will be history.

But, compaired to what you would be replacing, and the way pricing is, I think you'd be a fool not to replace at least one of those machines with an Intel 775 setup now.

Fixed.

-TyShoe

those machines arnt to slow
if you can wait a year or so, the new sockets will be released so if i were you i would wait

Thanks for all replies.

Basically yes or no, and sub, yes or no.

I do appreciate that things are complicated, if I did not, I would not be asking. At the end of the day, I have a job, a house, a wife. I do try to keep abreast of things, but cannot. I do try to survey the market, but cannot.

I will, probably, end up doing what I have done in the past, buy what I reckon to be the best I can get now. I will also, without doubt, end up totally disappointed.

There has to be a better way then this.

I think the best way to avoid disappoint when buying things, computers, cars, whatever, is to first realize that unless you're one of the fortunate few for which money is no object, there will be trade offs. First, decide what you want it do, in the case of a computer, games, video editing, etc? Then set up list ordering what's most important for you? Then figure out you're budget. If gaming is at the top of your list, then you'll want to put more of your budget into a video card then say if you're primarily interested in video or photo editing or music creation. If you're working with a $600 or $1000 budget, you're obviously not going to get a $600 video card. Does this mean you can't put together a machine that will basically meet your needs? Absolutely not. Check out what happens when they put a high end video card in their budget system
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/0 [...] _marathon/

You don't have to put a $500 card in the budget system to get some good gaming performance and I'm not suggesting this system, it's just meant to illustrate my point. Obviously a lower budget machine is going to be slower than one you 2 o3 times more for but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the budget machine and it won't basically meet your need, i.e., do what you want. While AMD won't give you the performance of Intel today, it doesn't mean that an AMD machine with a good video card won't allow you to play the games you want at a very good or top resolution. Plus if you're not looking to upgrade to the next generation, you can always upgrade the system. For example, get a good basic machine with an adequate video card and when you can afford it, even if it's a year or so, upgrade the video card. You can bet todays $500 card will be closer to $250 in a year and will still perform at the same level then as now. Will it be as good as next years $500? No but if it would meet today, it will meet your needs tomorrow. At least for me, if it meets my current needs and I enjoy it, I'm not disappointed. When you have a wife and http://img.tomshardware.com/forum/uk/icones/smile.gif
kids, there are a boatload of trade offs but that doesn't mean you have to be disappointed with you're toys, i.e., the things that not only meet your needs but give you pleasure, which again can be computers, cars, tools, audio systems, whatever. Get the best you can afford now and enjoy it knowing someday you'll be able to afford better. With in limits you can put together something you can build on although you're more limited with computers than say an audio system because of compatibility issues. In other words, if you enjoy playing games, get the best machine you can afford and enjoy the games. You also have to look to the future and realize that someday the kids will be gone and you can really afford to upgrade you're toys, although probably there will still be trade offs, just not as many. An awful lot of satisfaction comes from how you look at things not just what you have. So much for being Short. Sharp. Succinct., OK I'm still short

In response to the earlier DDR2/DDR3 talk, the Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R (http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=24248&vpn=GA-P35C-DS3R&manuf acture=Gigabyte) supports both DDR2 (4 slots) and DDR3 (2 slots) although not at the same time I imagine. This is somewhat future-proof.

Jo

To clarify, I do not play any games, I used to have one where you collected spices and built forts and tanks and so forth, but it doesn't work anymore.

The 2 machines run 24/7 as a UPS'd duty/hot standby web and database server. Most of their cycles go to DC projects. I wanted to increase the DC performance and reap some of the energy savings that I have heard about.

I read the review of the newest MoBo's here before asking. It would seem that P35 is a good thing, but most P35 boards are DDR3, and DDR3 has a very small performance gain whilst costing hugely more. Of course, it will improve and cheapen, but if I wait till then, the LGA775 is nearer it's demise and that becomes the dead-end. So a P35 with DDR2 and the memory becomes the dead-end. Whatever, I expect my video card won't fit.

I looked at the GigaByte board that does both. I worry that something that does both, does not do either particularly well, it also appeared to have a limited RAM capacity as you can only use one or the other, thus empty slots.

Cheers for all replies.

Get ASUS P5KC or GIGABYTE P35C DS3R , u will have : Both DDR2 and DDR3 support , and also next gen 45nm CPU (penryn) support