Not sure if this has been asked, but will an older mobo with a 975x or 965p chipset be able to take a newer C2D with the 1333fsb.

My AW9D-MAX can overclock to that FSB speed, but I'm guessing theres some nasty little technicality Intel planted to stop older boards from accepting them.

I just want to see what my option will be be if I ever decide to upgrade my e4300, as the 1333FSB chips are cheaper.

the latest AW9D BIOS has 1333fsb support

Really? Well thats good, i'll look for em now, thanks!

But the thing is, you may not see a big performance boost depending on how fast of a FSB your mobo can go.

If you were to buy an E6750 and OC'd the Mobo to full DDR2-800 speeds with an effect FSB of 1600 (400x4) you would only reach about 3.2Ghz and your E4300 should be able to hit close to this value w/o much difference in performance.

Most likely your older motherboard can't hit extreme FSB speeds needed to get really high speeds that these chips can hit.

The Q6600 G0 is likely the next logical upgrade since you would likely need the E6850 to be able to see a performance boost and the Q6600 is the same price and the Q6600 is my preferred CPU to the E6850 even if building a system from scratch.