Anyone know if current i7 mobo's will accept 32nm i7 parts?

[Hulk]

I'm thinking about moving to an i7 system but am not keen on making the motherboard purchase if the 32nm i7 part will require a new motherboard.

Anyone read anything about this?

 

[Sureshot324]

I'm 95% sure it will work. 32nm parts are coming out pretty soon and I doubt Intel would obsolete s1366 so quick.

 

[ghost recon88]

They won't be coming out until Q3 or Q4 of this year, but odds are good with a BIOS update you'll be able to run 32nm chips on your current X58 board.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: Sureshot324
I'm 95% sure it will work. 32nm parts are coming out pretty soon and I doubt Intel would obsolete s1366 so quick.

It's got nothing at all to do with obsoleting the socket. It's entirely dependent on how the board is made, whether the 32nm chips have voltage differences that will/won't work within the parameters available on the board, and whether or not the manufacturer cares enough to provide a BIOS update to support the new processors.

There are were a lot of people who bought new 975X/965P boards when the 65nm Core2 chips launched who were then disgusted to learn their boards wouldn't support the 45nm chips a year later (myself included - Gigabyte 965P-DS3 rev 1.0). And there was the whole stink about the 680i boards that would run 45nm duals but couldn't meet the electrical requirements for the 45nm quads. A lot of people were burned/pissed about that little fiasco.

I mean, look at the situation today - there are a whole crapload of "AM2+" boards available but only a portion of them actually support the new PhII chips. How would you like to have bought one of those, with a low end X2, intending to upgrade to PhII - only to discover at launch that your board wouldn't support the new faster/cooler/etc chips?

Why not consider this: buy a Q9550 today (or better yet in a couple of weeks when the prices drop to $270) and run that for about a year. Once Westmere has launched you can upgrade the whole system, that way you make sure you get a compatible board. An added benefit - waiting until early next year to build an i7 system means motherboard and DDR3 prices should have fallen significantly and you will either get more performance for your money or spend less money (or both).

If you're a gamer you should also upgrade that AIW x1900 to something newer/faster (and you'll still be considerably cheaper than building a whole i7 rig today).

 

[soccerballtux]

My guess is not, Intel will make them have a higher FSB to help the motherboard makers. So if it will run, you won't be able to OC very far.

 

[aigomorla]

bloomfield just came out and you guys are already talking about 32nm.

ROFL...

how about waiting for lynfield at least.

OP, nothing is future proof. I dont care who tells you something is future proof, but nothing in the computer world is future proof.

There is no solution to Greed except money.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
OP, nothing is future proof. I dont care who tells you something is future proof, but nothing in the computer world is future proof.

+1

Adding to Denithor's post about 975X/960P/AM2+/680i boards... anyone remember when Prescott came out? At the last moment Intel changed some power requirement, instantly obsoleting 865PE/875P chispet boards that shipped in boxes proclaiming "Prescott Ready."

I don't care what anyone claims. There is so much historic proof of stuff like this happening that you are just setting yourself up for dissapointment if your sole reason for a motherboard choice is future CPU support. Just consider it an added bonus if future CPU support happens.

The other thing is that there are other reasons to change motherboards periodically. For instance, even if you have a top end P965 board that supports 45nm chips and has dual x16 slots, if you are running Crossfire a P45 chipset board with dual x16 slots will be a bit better because the second slot is PCIe 2.0 x8 while the older board is PCIe x4, a big bandwidth difference. Just one example, but really, I can't see myself using some random ancient motherboard with my new 45nm quad core no matter how good that board was BITD. Besides, at least in my parts it is easier to sell a used motherboard with CPU than a CPU by itself.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: Zap

Adding to Denithor's post about 975X/960P/AM2+/680i boards... anyone remember when Prescott came out? At the last moment Intel changed some power requirement, instantly obsoleting 865PE/875P chispet boards that shipped in boxes proclaiming "Prescott Ready."

In that instance, Intel was doing early adopters a favor by forcing them to stick with their P4cs that, at the time, were faster clock-per-clock than Prescott and ran cooler.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX

Originally posted by: Zap

Adding to Denithor's post about 975X/960P/AM2+/680i boards... anyone remember when Prescott came out? At the last moment Intel changed some power requirement, instantly obsoleting 865PE/875P chispet boards that shipped in boxes proclaiming "Prescott Ready."

In that instance, Intel was doing early adopters a favor by forcing them to stick with their P4cs that, at the time, were faster clock-per-clock than Prescott and ran cooler.

Intel certainly did 680i owners a favor by making Yorkfield incompatible.

I started with a 680i board (QX6700) and could not overclock my FSB worth crap (but thankfully did not need to as I had that unlocked multi) and then migrated to a new X38 board (Asus P5E) and suddenly with the same cpu I could push my FSB all the way up to 400MHz.

680i may have been incompatible with Yorkfield, but from my experience it was only slightly compatible with Kentsfield. Anyone with a yorkfield dodged a bullet by never having to touch a 680i board.

 

[taltamir]

It's got nothing at all to do with obsoleting the socket. It's entirely dependent on how the board is made, whether the 32nm chips have voltage differences that will/won't work within the parameters available on the board, and whether or not the manufacturer cares enough to provide a BIOS update to support the new processors.

and THOSE things are determined by weather the manufacturer is secure enough in their superiority over the competition. If they are, they will obsolete it to sell move motherboard chips along with the cpu chips.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX
In that instance, Intel was doing early adopters a favor by forcing them to stick with their P4cs that, at the time, were faster clock-per-clock than Prescott and ran cooler.

LOL

Originally posted by: Idontcare
Intel certainly did 680i owners a favor by making Yorkfield incompatible.
...
Anyone with a yorkfield dodged a bullet by never having to touch a 680i board.

Double LOL

 

[Leafshutter]

Intel have said on a few press releases that the s1366 will be the base for the next 32nm chips, or for the high end ones at least, and have said that it is almost certain that the 32nm's will be a direct drop in for the x58 with perhaput wes a bios revision needed.

I'm a little skeptical about that as I can see the idea of new chip sets and cpu's making Intel a wad of cash but they also seem to speculate it's more likely they'll make a smaller/cheaper socket for the lower end 32nm chips and continue the x58+s1366 for the high end 32nm chips. I don't know how "set in stone" those comments were but I hope for my sake it's true.

I personally just forked out a whole bunch of cash for a decent i7 rig because I was upgrading from something shamefully underpowered and the pretense of 12-24 gigs of ram was better then 8 and huge memory bandwidth for my application (large image editing and 3d rendering).

I guess look at it like this, if the area you work in play to the core i7's strength (lots of threads and memory throughput) your probably getting your moneys worth in terms of performance per cost (the cpu's themselves aren't THAT expensive as the i7 920 overclocks very well and very easily without touching any voltages) and if you can slot in a 32nm when ever they arrive even better.

On the other hand if all you want is the newest thing or you've got an existing c2d or c2q system and use it for more general/gaming purposes, wait and see what develops.

 

[Viditor]

Mods...please block this guy's IP as soon as you can.
These Spammers are like viruses, you have to fight them at every turn!!!

EDIT: That was fast!!

Thanks...posts have now gone.