LGA 1366 officially new standard?

ralfyboy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 27, 2004
Messages
211
One of the biggest mistakes I made when I built my current PC was buying an AMD socket 754 cpu when the 939 socket cpus had just become available. I figured I didn't need the high-end performance of a 939 cpu at the time, so I went and got the 754.

And while I was right, and my cpu performance rivaled that of my friend's more expensive 939 model, it unfortunately prevented me from being able to upgrade other parts of my computer later on.

I have an AGP graphics card, and I can't upgrade to a PCI-E card because the 754 motherboard doesn't support that. Also, if I wanted to just upgrade my motherboard, I would have to buy a new video card (because current mobos dont support AGP) and get a new cpu (because 754 has been phased out). And of course, I can't just upgrade my CPU without needing a new motherboard.

So what does this have to do with LGA 1366 socket?

I've been out of the loop for a while in terms of keeping up with all the latest technology, but I've heard Intel has regained its position as the best CPU manufacturer. Particularly, I heard the Core 2s were pretty good.

But now, I'm seeing Core i7s? With socket type LGA 1366?

Looking at the specs for some Core i7s, I know I don't need that type of performance, but as I mentioned earlier, that logic screwed me over later with my AMD setup.

So I just want to know if 1366 is the way of the future and will eventually phase out all 775 cpus, or if this new socket type is just for the hardcore?

I don't want to make the same mistake twice.

All feedback is appreciated.
 
From Intel's point of view, 775 is dead. However, Intel 45nm quads for 775 are still extremely good performers and should remain so for years to come. 775 boards support PCIe 2.0 and DDR3, neither of which are going anywhere anytime soon. So if you got a Core 2 Quad Q9xx0 you'll be set for a long while.
 
Socket 1366 i7 Core are a niche market for the "hardcore" peeps.

There is a i5 Core CPU with a socket 1166 (The number might be wrong) for the more mainstream users. S775 life is dead, but the CPU's are still holding their own.

AMD just released its AM3 socket to jump on the DDR3 band wagon...

You can jump to an i7 which may hold you for a very long time, wait for i5 or build an am3 system.
 
One of the biggest mistakes I made when I built my current PC was buying an AMD socket 754 cpu when the 939 socket cpus had just become available. I figured I didn't need the high-end performance of a 939 cpu at the time, so I went and got the 754.

And while I was right, and my cpu performance rivaled that of my friend's more expensive 939 model, it unfortunately prevented me from being able to upgrade other parts of my computer later on.

I have an AGP graphics card, and I can't upgrade to a PCI-E card because the 754 motherboard doesn't support that. Also, if I wanted to just upgrade my motherboard, I would have to buy a new video card (because current mobos dont support AGP) and get a new cpu (because 754 has been phased out). And of course, I can't just upgrade my CPU without needing a new motherboard.

So what does this have to do with LGA 1366 socket?

I've been out of the loop for a while in terms of keeping up with all the latest technology, but I've heard Intel has regained its position as the best CPU manufacturer. Particularly, I heard the Core 2s were pretty good.

But now, I'm seeing Core i7s? With socket type LGA 1366?

Looking at the specs for some Core i7s, I know I don't need that type of performance, but as I mentioned earlier, that logic screwed me over later with my AMD setup.

So I just want to know if 1366 is the way of the future and will eventually phase out all 775 cpus, or if this new socket type is just for the hardcore?

I don't want to make the same mistake twice.

All feedback is appreciated.

Okay, here's the REAL deal with socket 1366 and socket 1156. Both will co-exist for the next couple of years. Socket 1366 is for high end desktop and server CPUs, and as a server socket is garunteed to have upgrades available for no less then 2 years. Socket 1156 is the new mid range to low end socket and will go through at least 2 major revisions in it's first year (1156-B to 1156-C).

Socket 1156 isn't due out till the P55 chipset launches with Core i5 later this year. Socket 1366 is here to stay, Intel's server market demands it. Socket 775 is dead, it's the current "socket 754" in that regard.
 
Okay, here's the REAL deal with socket 1366 and socket 1156. Both will co-exist for the next couple of years. Socket 1366 is for high end desktop and server CPUs, and as a server socket is garunteed to have upgrades available for no less then 2 years. Socket 1156 is the new mid range to low end socket and will go through at least 2 major revisions in it's first year (1156-B to 1156-C).

Socket 1156 isn't due out till the P55 chipset launches with Core i5 later this year. Socket 1366 is here to stay, Intel's server market demands it. Socket 775 is dead, it's the current "socket 754" in that regard.

I wouldn't say 775 is the current 754. 754's downfall was that it came out before the transition to a lot of the newer platform technologies that are in place today. By the time PCIe, SATA, dual-core CPUs, became popular 754 had already been relegated to "budget platform" status. LGA775, on the other hand, was here for the evolution of the technology that is supported by LGA1366. Anything you get with a LGA1366 board can be found on an LGA775 board. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
 
I wouldn't quite say 775 is dead. Sure you'll still find people getting high end 775 and saying they saved a few bucks and still have a powerful system. And if a powerful but cost effective computing solution is the main requirement/priority, that makes absolute sense. But future chips with new tech are not going to focus on the 775, so the savings come at the price of future upgrade potential.

As for 1156, heck it isn't even out yet! And let's not even go into 1156B or 1156C or whatever they call the future incarnations of something that isn't even released. If you do choose to go down this path ask yourself why. If it's merely to say "look I got an i5" to tell your 775 buddies you have newer tech, well, it's not especially convincing. If it is to save money while getting a powerful system, that's a better reason, but I wouldn't bother waiting, I'd just grab the extremely cost-effective 775 "now".

But from your perspective where you're looking ahead, want to ensure you have future upgrade options, and are looking to build now using a standard that will stay with us for several years, and going to build your own system, that leaves the 1366 as your best choice for now.
 
I wouldn't say 775 is the current 754. 754's downfall was that it came out before the transition to a lot of the newer platform technologies that are in place today. By the time PCIe, SATA, dual-core CPUs, became popular 754 had already been relegated to "budget platform" status. LGA775, on the other hand, was here for the evolution of the technology that is supported by LGA1366. Anything you get with a LGA1366 board can be found on an LGA775 board. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Not true. In fact, downright misleading if taken wrong. In reference to 775 being the current 754, I was totally correct in my reference, you just didn't get that reference is all. The reference being that buying into 775 now means your buying into an end of life platform, and it IS end of life.

And BS to getting anything you can find on a socket 1366 board with socket 775. Integrated memory controller? No. CPU point to point bus? No. Triple channel memory? No. SLI and Crossfire on the same board? No (Xeon socket 771 has a couple options in this regard, Skulltrail, but not s775). Socket 1366 is tied to the CPU's features in a way socket 775 never was, and because of it, your statement becomes an over generalization because the boards are based on a newer and better architecture.

You'd have to be blind to say you don't see that changing, because it already has. All of the above are major features that are NOT on any socket 775 board, and never will be. Socket 775 is breathing it's last breath and it's unwise to buy into now unless you intend to build a machine that's central platform is dead end before you start.
 
LGA1366 will be upgradable to the hexacores.
LGA1156 will be the standard dual and quad core socket.

Avoid s775.
 
socket 775 is dying BUT that doesn't really matter as much as it did in the 754 / 939 days.
What really hurt you was the whole AGP to PCIe thing and the fact that 939 boards weren't that expensive.
If you get a 100 dollar 775 board that supports DDR3 (like http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010200280+1070509908+1387931642&Configurator=&Subcategory=280&description=&Ntk=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc= )
you can buy a 100 dollar 1366 board in a few years (when they cost that much) when you need to upgrade again AND be able to use all of your current parts! That would probably land you better off dollar wise than jumping to 1366 now and upgrading your 1366 chip in a few years. Especially if you resell the motherboard and chip to recoup some of the cost.
 
IMHO I just bought a 775 board w/ddr3, supports every 775 cpu known. Have an 8400 that can run anything out there now. tell me within 2 years if im going to need anything more than 8gb ddr3 and a QX9650? - dont think so. Even though 775 is EOL, as one of the posts above stated, there is still current technology present, thats not going anywhere. Dual 16x slots, DDR3.. AND the price / performance ratio you cant beat - $800 for I7/RAM/MOBO $450 for Quad/Ram/Mobo that equals 75% if not more performance in real world scenarios, not just synthetic benchmarks. I believe [H] covered this.
 
IMHO I just bought a 775 board w/ddr3, supports every 775 cpu known. Have an 8400 that can run anything out there now. tell me within 2 years if im going to need anything more than 8gb ddr3 and a QX9650? - dont think so. Even though 775 is EOL, as one of the posts above stated, there is still current technology present, thats not going anywhere. Dual 16x slots, DDR3.. AND the price / performance ratio you cant beat - $800 for I7/RAM/MOBO $450 for Quad/Ram/Mobo that equals 75% if not more performance in real world scenarios, not just synthetic benchmarks. I believe [H] covered this.

Justify it all you want but i7 is the king. Besides, who says it has to be $800? I've had a $500 upgrade initially (EVGA x58 mobo+920 CPU+ 3gb ram, all brand-new), granted, I did more upgrading after that but that package is still kick-ass and not much more expensive than your 775 upgrade
 
As mentioned before, the comparison between 754 and 775 is not really valid - 754 was always the "budget" socket for AMD, while 775 was Intel's mainstream offering, so it supports important things like PCIe. Yes, if you buy 775 now you won't be able to upgrade to an i7 later, but since there is no impending upgrade for video buses or hard drive buses I don't think you would be locking yourself out of anything by going 775, unlike the experience you had with 754.

You can get a used Q9550 and you are going to have all the CPU power you are going to need for quite some time - and since you will be able to continue upgrading video cards you've got a viable multi-year solution.
 
yea im in canada. lowest price for the processor alone is $379

nah i didnt want to start an argument i was just trying to say that I personally dont think 775 shouldnt be considered a viable upgrade path today.
 
Not true. In fact, downright misleading if taken wrong. In reference to 775 being the current 754, I was totally correct in my reference, you just didn't get that reference is all. The reference being that buying into 775 now means your buying into an end of life platform, and it IS end of life.

And BS to getting anything you can find on a socket 1366 board with socket 775. Integrated memory controller? No. CPU point to point bus? No. Triple channel memory? No. SLI and Crossfire on the same board? No (Xeon socket 771 has a couple options in this regard, Skulltrail, but not s775). Socket 1366 is tied to the CPU's features in a way socket 775 never was, and because of it, your statement becomes an over generalization because the boards are based on a newer and better architecture.

You'd have to be blind to say you don't see that changing, because it already has. All of the above are major features that are NOT on any socket 775 board, and never will be. Socket 775 is breathing it's last breath and it's unwise to buy into now unless you intend to build a machine that's central platform is dead end before you start.

Those are all features are tied to the motherboard and cpu. In the grand scheme of thing, if you're not looking for ultimate performance, right now, even though it's EOL, 775 is still a good choice. You get DDR3, SATA 3.0, PCIe 2.0 in nearly every board. Triple-channel just increases performance, QPI just increases performance. Integrated memory controller just increases performance. But they are not vital to having a nice system that will still be comfortably fast for years to come.

The problem the OP is running into now is that nothing on the market today will work in his board. If history is any indication, DDR3, PCIe, and SATA will still remain viable for a good long while.
 
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yea im in canada. lowest price for the processor alone is $379

nah i didnt want to start an argument i was just trying to say that I personally dont think 775 shouldnt be considered a viable upgrade path today.

Sucks to be you :D Joking! I love Canada, especially Terrence and Phillip :) kidding again :) Anyways, if you had shopped around, you could've ended up with an i7 setup for the same money you spent on 775. For example, I got a kickass deal at NCIX ;)
 
TC, you should consider AMD's socket AM3. You can get DDR3, PCIe 2.0, SATA 3.0, Crossfire, etc etc. on an AM3 motherboard. The one huge advantage it has over 775, though, is that it is a brand new platform that has a good future ahead of it. If you want to get a better processor in a year or two, you will be able to. If you want a new motherboard down the road, you will still be able to keep your CPU, memory, HDDs, graphics card, etc.

I'd say go with either 1366 or AM3, depending on which one better fits your budget.
 
Like the others have said, LGA775 is EOL. It's very possible to buy a LGA775 system now and have it run everything you need just fine. However, I wouldn't expect to really do any upgrades to it (which may also not be an issue for you). It's similar to S754 in that you're adopting it as it's on the way out. However, as mentioned already, LGA775 has basically all of the (non-CPU) features you'll find on a LGA1366 board. You can still get DDR3, SATA, CF or SLI, etc. on a LGA775 board.

Simply by being brand new, LGA1366 will most likely have a relatively long life to come. You're catching it on the way in rather than on the way out, if nothing else.

As for AM3, I just couldn't justify it when putting together my new system. The Phenom II is designed to compete with the Core2. In GPU-bound gaming, the PhII holds up fairly well. In CPU-intensive stuff, I've seen benchmarks of an i7 920 still beating out a PhII 955BE overclocked to 3.7GHz by 27%. Top of the line processor, overclocked that much, and it's still that far behind? A higher end PhII is close to the MicroCenter price of an i7 920. DDR3 will be the same cost (though I would've gone with 8GB on a dual channel AM3, while I have 6GB on my tri-channel LGA1366, so it's actually cheaper). The motherboards are $100-$150 cheaper (depending on exactly what you want). When it came down to ~$450 for AM3 or $570 for i7, I had to go i7. (I got the EVGA X58 A1 and 6GB 1.5V DDR3-1866 in a combo for $370 - $30MIR and the MC i7 for $230 three months ago.)

This is actually the first Intel system I've owned. AMD tends to be more upgradeable on paper, but I have much less luck in actuality. The old Super7 chips were really bottlenecked by putting them in older Socket7 systems. My high-end SocketA board was from near the beginning, so it didn't have the fifth multiplier bit and therefore couldn't run the higher multipliers of the newest chips. My latest board was only AM2, not AM2+, and didn't support the AM3 CPUs. I would've simply dropped an AM3 PhII into my existing system, but it wasn't supported. Which is why I'm typing this on an i7. If you can drop an AM3 CPU into your current rig, it can be a very cheap upgrade, and allow for a future motherboard upgrade as well. However, I won't believe any claims regarding "future proof"ness until we've actually hit "the future" and I see it work myself.

If you want a cheap, "good enough" system for now, LGA775 can work out great. If you want something a little more future-proof, AM3 or LGA1366 is the way to go. And personally, I felt the relatively small price difference was definitely worth the extra power of the i7.
 
InvisiBIll, I was in the exact same situation as you. I finally decided on the i7 myself (i7 920, Gigabyte UD3R X58 board, 6GB OCZ 1600mhz DDR3) for about $560. It should be here tomorrow! :) I decided that the extra $70-$80 over a high-end Phenom II system was worth it.

If you wanted to go a bit lower than that, though, I think socket AM3 is definitely the way to go. E.G. a Phenom II 720, a decent 790GX motherboard, and 4GB DDR3 can be had for around $300. That is a pretty compelling platform that has a good future ahead of it.

Anyway, I'd stay away from LGA 775 unless you find a really good deal, and you don't mind having no future upgrade options for CPU or motherboard.
 
I'm sure socket 1366 will stick around for a few years and is the way to go for higher end. The question that holds me up from upgrading though is wheather the current X58 boards will support the next gen CPUs. Would be a shame if those shiny new 32nm hexacores come out next year and will not run on your mobo.
 
Socket 1366 will be around for a few years but there is no guarantee that current motherboards will support the 32nm 1366 CPUs that will be released in 2010.

I said it before and I will say it again, there is no upgrade proof setup.
 
i have a 775 system, when i need to upgrade my cpu i will go to a highend 775 quad. i cant justify dropping $2500+ on a new i7 system ( i live in new zealand, our hardware prices are retarded) when i could drop $300-$500 for an awesome 775 quad to replace my e6850. if i had the cash to go i7 i would in a heartbeat. if i was building a new rig then i would go i7 and not 775.
 
Socket 1366 will be around for a few years but there is no guarantee that current motherboards will support the 32nm 1366 CPUs that will be released in 2010.

I said it before and I will say it again, there is no upgrade proof setup.

Hmmmm, in that regard, I might agree. Socket 775's earliest (Pentium 4 Prescott) chips supported won't run on today's P35/45/X38/48 motherboards, and likewise you cannot run a E8x00 or Q9x50 on the early boards either. But then, that's a BIG leap. We're talking nearly 5 years. Pentium D ran just fine on the same boards as Precott generally though, and I expect we'll see similar here.

First round of Westmere 32nm will most likely indeed work on most of today's motherboards, but when the cycle goes back to the "tick" again (Intel's tick-tock thingy) and Sandy Bridge hits, even though it too most likely will be socket 1366, it won't be happy on today's X58 boards (unless we're REALLY crazy lucky and Intel cuts us an unexpected break).
 
775 system is more like the 939 when amd eol it stuck around for another couple years because of the price of ram and generally better performence than the first am2 chipsets. You can get into a cheap 775 setup that will do everything you need it to do now and for the next year. You big question should be are you using a 64 bit or will you be in the next two years? PCI-e is going to be the video bus until they find a reason to dump ten times as much bandwidth down the bus which is what killed agp. If they make that much of change your going to have to upgrade everything anyway :) So really it comes down to ram do you need DDR3? DDR3 supports faster speeds and six 4GB sticks on most x58 boards.
The real question is what you use the system for? If it is just for gaming I'd buy the most bang for the buck today and worry about tommorow when it gets here since you have no idea what tech is just around the corner so to speak.
 
I don't know whether to expect sandybridge to work on s1366 or not. Probably will.
 
We know Intel's "Gulftown" hexacore processore will use the X58 chipset. . . so there is a good chance it will work on current socket 1366 motherboards. I agree, though, that there is really no such thing as a guaranteed upgrade-proof setup.

All we have to go by is how AMD and Intel have done things in the past. In that regard, both AMD and Intel really supported their previous platforms (AM2/AM2+ and LGA 775) for a remarkably long time.
 
I'm going to just put it this way, by the time you upgrade each system is going to last you about a year and a half tops, before you start seeing changes to new platforms or "technology", not sure if that's the right word.

The system in my sig is exactly 1 1/2 years old. I think it's still pretty relevant, might just need Vista, some 4 GB of ram, and a 260 GTX or higher, but truthfully I don't see it that beneficial to change, ............yet.

Plus, the economy is REALLY bad in my state.
 
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