Theory to build a socket 775 to socket 775 adapter

[sheac12]

Let me start by stating that I am a working electrical engineer. I have been building and disassembling PCs for most of my 26 years of life as a hobbyist. So I know my way around.

This is theory; don?t just blow this off as "cannot be done." Assuming the PCB could be manufactured and cost wasn?t a limiting factor could this be done?

Background: I have a HP z545, a great little device HP made but hasn?t updated the models enough to get me to upgrade. I like the motherboard and feel it is quit capable for an entertainment machine, but the CPU support is lacking. I upgraded the video card to a 7600GT so I have HDCP support. I solved my cooling issues with heat sink upgrades and fan upgrades and upped the processor to a P4 650. My problem is attempting to play back a HD DVD or a BLUERAY I drop frames like crazy and the processor is pushed to the max.

So, I am purposing this quest for a socket to socket adapter.

Start with these assumptions
A socket 775 motherboard with a 915i chipset and DDR1 that only supports the p4 unto a 650
The motherboard doesn?t need to support the correct voltage
Target CPU is a Core 2 Duo E4400 with an 800MHz FSB

Now I believe there is no outstanding technical reason why DDR2 has to be used with a core 2 or a Pentium d for that matter. In fact the processor accesses all memory through the chipset anyway, so access is really just limited to read and writes to generic addresses.
(I could be wrong and I willingly accept that)

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The facts, the socket 478 to 423 adapters worked like a charm for many different users for a long time, including myself.

CPU ids can be "emulated using small embedded EPROM?s

So does anyone out there have any ideas, comments on this?

 

[Modelworks]

It can probably be done but the cost involved wouldn't justify it.
Motherboards are far too cheap now, about 40.00 if you just want core2 support.

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: sheac12
Now I believe there is no outstanding technical reason why DDR2 has to be used with a core 2 or a Pentium d for that matter. In fact the processor accesses all memory through the chipset anyway, so access is really just limited to read and writes to generic addresses.
(I could be wrong and I willingly accept that)

There are Core 2 compatible motherboards that use DDR memory. The processor doesn't care, except for AMD's chips that have the memory controller on-die.

 

[CTho9305]

Best case, you're going to run into problems with the BIOS - at bootup, BIOSes often (usually? always?) load microcode patches and perform model-specific initialization of various features; it's likely that a BIOS for a core 2 isn't going to know how to configure a P4.

Worst case, you're going to fry things. While ~a decade ago, a 30 watt CPU might have required 10 amps (@3.3v), a 30 watt CPU now requires closer to 30 amps. It takes a very good voltage regulator to supply good power to the CPU.

Keep in mind that the timing on some of the signals may be very sensitive. "Eye diagrams" I've seen gave me the impression that memory-related signals would be extremely sensitive to the signal strength and timing on AMD CPUs. FSBs might be equally sensitive.

 

[ryema22]

If your biggest problem is watching HD-DVD/BluRay, why wouldn't you just upgrade the video card to one of the newer offerings with hardware decoding for HD? An 8600GTS or ATI equivilent would take the load almost entirely off the CPU

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3047

 

[450]

Correct me if I'm wrong but with my 8600GTS I can only get HD video decoding with Vista. XP doesn't work.

So with his situation wouldn't a motherboard upgrade or using something like CoreAVC be more efficient?