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S1366 Westmere

andrewdodd13

andrewdodd13

andrewdodd13

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Joined
26 Jan 2009
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848
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Amsterdam
I see a lot of discussion in various topics about the upcoming S1156 Core i5 Nehalem (and 32nm i3 Clarkdate chips) processors and the i7 Nehalems being discontinued.

My question is, if I buy a S1366 motherboard for an i7 Nehalem just now, will I be able to get a BIOS upgrade and put a S1366 32nm Westmere part in it?
 
im pritty sure, off the top of my head those westmere cpus will only need a bios update.
as the sockets are the same i see no reason for those not to work

if they dont work then thats another intel master plan to rip people off like there doing by discontinueing the l7 920s.
 
If the manufacturers kept to the design guidelines other than a bios upgrade I don't see why the boards wouldn't work with the westmere chips.
 
Thanks for that, pretty good news. Of course, I guess it relies on choosing a mobo manufacturer who will release a BIOS upgrade to support it. I've noticed Asus are pretty good at this, so P6T. :)

I'll be finally looking to upgrade my gaming rig when I get paid this month to i7 then (yearly bonus, yus!)
 
Sure about i7? Seem to be some pretty strong arguments in favour of amd for gaming at the moment

edit: all based around slower processor + faster graphics => better gaming experience at same or lower cost
 
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JonJ678 said:
Sure about i7? Seem to be some pretty strong arguments in favour of amd for gaming at the moment

edit: all based around slower processor + faster graphics => better gaming experience at same or lower cost
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Mm, it's a bit of a misnomer for me to call my desktop a gaming rig. Generally the only game I play is Red Alert 3, and I'd bet that's being held back more by an 8600GT rather than my proc. Generally I need a faster processor as I do a lot of development on large projects which take a while to compile, and then there's all those BOINC projects I have sitting in my task bar (CUDA doesn't work while PC's in use, so that doesn't matter for me :)).

Besides, I think I can afford the i7 overhead and still get an X2 or GTX 285 (I'm not sure whether I'm attached to CUDA or not), so price-to-performance isn't a biggie for me.

Edit: Saying price isn't an issue is a strange thing to say in a thread where I'm worried about having to buy a new motherboard in six months, but oh well. :)
 
Ahh sensible fellow. I spend far more on processor than graphics cards for a similar reason, I'm quite happy with my 8800gt. In that case, yep, i7 for the win. I wish I could justify moving to one from my quad core.

I think I'm fairly attached to cuda, but I don't think I'd pay the premium for it at the moment
 
Ninja Please! said:
6 core processor for gaming? or more e-peen?

okay I admit,... That last comment was made up just to get me to that 500 mark and a new avatar:D
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E-peen will be main reason, of course.

But hopefully the move to Westmere should hopefully bring some slight clock-for-clock performance upgrades as well. And going by the tick-tock strategy, Westmere should be around for 2 years before the next full architecture change... so a Socket 1366 board will last me 3 years now. :)
 
andrewdodd13 said:
E-peen will be main reason, of course.

But hopefully the move to Westmere should hopefully bring some slight clock-for-clock performance upgrades as well. And going by the tick-tock strategy, Westmere should be around for 2 years before the next full architecture change... so a Socket 1366 board will last me 3 years now. :)
Click to expand...

Thats what i was wishing for when i bought my X58 mobo, change my DO chip in about 18 months and away we go again...
 
I buy every new motherboard thinking ill upgrade the processor on it...... never actually done this though! (I know some people do change quite a lot)
 
Caracus2k said:
I buy every new motherboard thinking ill upgrade the processor on it...... never actually done this though! (I know some people do change quite a lot)
Click to expand...
I have to admit I'm the same. I had a Socket A AMD with DDR, and then I bought a Socket 775 mobo + E2160 CPU about a year and a half ago, think I'd upgrade to a Yorkie. :)
 
Also when the 6 core is released it should have a more aggressive tubo mode like the newer xenos, meaning it will clock up a bit more in double or single threaded apps
 
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