Futureproofing: 1156 or 1366?

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Shuk

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I'm looking to buy a new mobo, but Intel has 2 new boards. Right now, 1366 is overkill, but will this be the new standard? If I buy 1156, will I have to upgrade my mobo in a year's time?

I've noticed that the LGA1366 is designed for triple channel RAM. I've noticed people saying this is overkill NOW, but looking into the future, is this going to be the new standard, or will the 1156 boards stay for a while with Dual Channel RAM?
 
People are going back and forth with the "standard". Id be more inclined to go with 1366 if you want to upgrade your CPU later to a 6 core (which Intel has said is on the roadmap and next major step for 1366). 1156 is more mainstream with slightly less performance (dual channel ram, 8x/8x PCI-e lanes instead of 16x/16x).

Some people think its going to be like AMD's 939/940 sockets. I think both will do well, and will run their course w/ the 1156 being a cheaper upgrade for those who cant afford 1366. I dont think either will be phased out anytime soon and by the time they are, itll be time to upgrade anyways :)

In a years time will you need to upgrade? Either way I dont believe so. Some say the 920 is going to be killed, who cares? That doesnt mean the platform is dead by any means. Go with what your budget allows you to go with. You can pickup an x58 board, i7, and RAM for about $500 total OR go with i5, P55, and RAM for about $400. i7 on 1156 is about the same price as 1366 (the board costs more for x58, but the cheapest 1156 i7 is more than the 920 on 1366) so Id say go with 1366 i7 and give yourself a better CPU upgrade path next year.

Just my opinion though :)
 
Don't worry about standards..... Just buy what you can afford and worry about changes later. I went from an AMD Athlon 64 3500 that I built in 2004 to an i7 W3520 with a P6T6 motherboard. No upgrades in the interim as it did the work/play that I needed. When new software suggested that it was time to upgrade I just went with the best that I could afford. My next change coould be next year or it could be 5 years from now....

FWIW, I tend to think of PC "standards" as being corporate related as they prefer supporting as few configurations as possible that get the job done as cheaply as possible. Personal users get what they need whilst enthusiasts are only limited by available funds... :D

Bob
 
i5 seems like a pretty good deal. Seems like it is only a little bit behind the bloomfield in performance.

Keep in mind the 920 is still better than the 860.
 
yup i agree with doz just get whatever meets ur budget and if u plan to upgrade to a 6 core lga 1366 would be great, plus u can do Crossfire or SLI later on too ;)
 
i'd go for the 1156. i'm afraid chips for 1366 will either be very limited (like only one or two new chips) or be very expensive - outside of the 920, all the other chips are over $500.
 
s1366 is where its at in terms of pure performance, memory expansion, and PCI-E lanes.
 
They will both be fast for at least the few years. pick the one that best suits your needs.
 
Chips will NOT be limited for 1366. 1366/1156 will both have i7. 1156 will have i5, 1366 will have i9. Its all in what you want. If you want higher end, go with 1366 (and if you have money to spend). If you dont have the budget, or the performance isnt what you need, get i5 fore sure (with the upgrade path to 1156 i7).
 
I think what will happen with the x58 is the same thing that happened with the x48 They promised those first gen boards would work with quad cores and they did (the q6600) but when the penryn ones that came out later many boards did not support them.

Personally I don't think it will matter either way. If you buy a x58 board now and want a gulftown later I would bet you are going to want to upgrade boards anyway for usb3.0 and the updated SATA standard.
 
stainremover said:
i'm afraid chips for 1366 will either be very limited (like only one or two new chips) or be very expensive - outside of the 920, all the other chips are over $500.
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Price is my one issue with 1366. It sounds like they're going to be catering to the server and enthusiast markets with it, which I believe will be the expensive CPUs (Xeon, "EE" versions, etc.). I expect them to keep the lower-end stuff on 1156 and the higher-end stuff on 1366 with a well-defined line between the two, to keep from cannibalizing their budget market with 920-like deals.

If you're not looking for SLI or lots of cores, you'll probably be fine with 1156. If you want the extra PCIe lanes or more cores, you'll want to go 1366, but you might end up paying a premium any time you want to upgrade.


zeekle said:
I think what will happen with the x58 is the same thing that happened with the x48 They promised those first gen boards would work with quad cores and they did (the q6600) but when the penryn ones that came out later many boards did not support them.

Personally I don't think it will matter either way. If you buy a x58 board now and want a gulftown later I would bet you are going to want to upgrade boards anyway for usb3.0 and the updated SATA standard.
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Gulftown will use the X58 chipset. I believe some manufacturers actually have their boards supporting it already. As with everything related to PCs, anything not out yet is still a gamble. I'm hoping my board will last quite a while, but I also wouldn't be surprised to see the first release of such a jump in technology get replaced before too long either. There are always unforeseen issues, but I'd like to think that with each generation, they get better at making things more future-proof.

Gulftown is expected to be released in the first part of next year. I don't think anything with USB3 or SATA3 has been released yet, either devices or ports to plug them into. I personally only use USB for flash drives and none of my disks exceed SATA2 speeds (I haven't gone SSD yet), so I see no reason to get either one at this point. However, dropping in a faster CPU with more cores will basically make everything faster.
 
I don't think many of us here are able to "future proof" anything. New stuff comes out..we want to get it...future to me is about 6-8 months out. LOL. To be honest...I don't think the software is anywhere near keeping up with the speeds at which the hardware is improving.
 
The word "Futureproofing" makes me LOL I am sorry to say, no offense. But I have been building my own systems for 15 years and you just can't future proof any part if your an enthusiast. Maybe memory or harddrives that's about it.

I mean, out of all the times I have upgraded my CPU over the years, I have to say 90% of that time it also included a new motherboard to go along with the new processor. Usually a new CPU sometimes is a different socket, or has new features an older motherboard doesn't support.

Just got the best deal you can afford and go from there, think what is good for today or the near future, bit not 1 or 2 years down the road.
 
Price is my one issue with 1366. It sounds like they're going to be catering to the server and enthusiast markets with it, which I believe will be the expensive CPUs (Xeon, "EE" versions, etc.). I expect them to keep the lower-end stuff on 1156 and the higher-end stuff on 1366 with a well-defined line between the two, to keep from cannibalizing their budget market with 920-like deals.
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That's always been Intel's stated plan.
 
At a minimum a given CPU socket will usually remain in use for about 2 years at least. That isn't always the case but my take on the socket issue is this; It really doesn't matter if a socket gets changed in less than two years or not. You'll probably need or want a new motherboard by the time that new CPU comes out regardless of the socket type. Most of the time it seems that newer CPU variants even within a given CPU family or brand often required a new motherboard anyway even though the socket stayed the same. How many times did we need a new motherboard for socket LGA775 processors? FSB's always got changed, electrical requirements changed, memory support changed. All these things led to so many motherboard and chipset changes over the years that couldn't have been avoided depsite the socket being carried over to the next generation of boards. All that gave us was backwards compatibility for new motherboards to use old CPUs. I don't see a ton of value in that generally speaking. So why worry about a socket sticking around for several years? It wouldn't do you any good even if it did.

The idea of keeping a board around for two or three years and being able to drop in a new CPU is appealing, but the reality is that these technologies seldom allow you that luxery. More often than not, they don't. For the enthusiast it's even less of an option as the newer CPUs might work in your board, but they'll overclock relatively poorly compared to newer motherboards. Or there will be new features on newer boards that you'll want anyway. Most of the time the biggest value in keeping the same socket is in being able to use a larger variety of cooling solutions with that shiny new board and processor.
 
no such thing as future-proofing with a motherboard. Going with a current board with either socket will still not help you out when the Westmere chips come out if you want to use the new functionality that will require new motherboards that support it. You MAY be able to flash to a newer BIOS that will allow you to at least run the new chips just without the new graphics-related features.

Regardless, you're wasting your time if you're trying to future-proof with either one. Best bet would be to buy the cheaper setup now and it'll still last you a good two years unless you're the e-peen type. ;)
 
I'm in this dilemma as we speak, what platform to launch into, and im leaning towards 1366, and it really doesnt have anything to do with future proofing, just sometimes you want raw performance, and although it may come at something like 100 or 200 dollars more for the platform, that little bump in performance is well worth it to someone like me. but to each his own i say.
 
Depends, are you going to be happy with a Ci7 920 or higher when the 6-cores come out on 1366? Rumored to be 1k or so as they are going to be an 'extreme' chip. The 6-core won't be on 1156, but plenty of other goodies will be.
 
Do you think they will make newer x58 boards with the two new standards when they come out (sata 6g and usb 3.0) or is that only going to be on the 1156 platform? i think the 1366 platform will keep me happy for a while. just upgrade the gpu and storage from time to time to get better performance.
 
There is nothing called Future Proofing. Some years down the line, something new will replace the current hardware. Assess your requirements and priorities and go for the kill. :)
 
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