Best Future Proof: LGA 1156 vs LGA 1366

1366 by far has the best upgrade path, since you have hexa-cores and octo cores.

I have been trying to figure out the answer as well. i7 920 on 1366 or i5-i7 on 1156. Sandy bridge will be out in a year or 2 an know one really knows what socket its going to use and how long each socket is going to last. This is the info ive gathered so far

1366 peformance is better than 1156 especially if using multi gpu

It seems like you should get a i7 920 if
you know how to overclock it
multi gpu
Live near a microcenter and get an 1366 rig for about the same as a cheaper 1156



get and 1156 reasons
Dont live near a microcenter then basic i5/i7 1156 rig can wind up cheaper
Dont know how to overclock in which case the higher turbo mode will give you a little more performance for a cheaper price
lower power consumption
Also isnt the gulftown going to be really expensive

Im not an expert so this is info im getting from different forum threads. if ive stated anything wrong please let me know. The more opinions the better.

Probably both will be around even though 1156 is newer. For me i may go with 1156

If I m not wrong then we guys normally upgrade mobo whenever we upgrade CPU.

So we should not worry about the kind of slot will be used by future processors or not.

We don't generally switch 2-3 CPU on a same mobo.

Dual channel RAM is integrated on 1156.

Actually, if you look at a block diagram, the QPI is on 1156, too, just on-package or on-die. DMI is on the 1366 platform as well, between the northbridge and southbridge, and since northbridge is completely subsumed by the 1156 products, it's totally a wash.

In reality, the only things missing on 1156 that are present on 1366 is an extra x16 channels of PCIe off the northbridge and the extra DDR3 channel.

You have explained better what I was meaning. Your words "just on-package or on-die" was what I was talking about. The DMI is also on the 1366 platform but the bandwith of the two system is different just for the adoption of the it. Intel’s QPI is a very fast bus delivering up to 25.6GB/s of bandwidth while Intel’s DMI is the link used between the X58 chipset and the ICH10 I/O controller, it’s a much more conservative bus capable of delivering 2 - 4GB/s of bandwidth. So the difference comes on the adoption of the QPI and DMI on the sockets. 1366 gives you the total bandwith of QPI, 1156 reach only the bandwith of DMI.

If you’ve got a multi-socket system (e.g. dual processor Xeon workstation, or Skulltrail successor) or if you’ve got a lot of high bandwidth PCIe devices (e.g. multi-GPU or lots of Larrabees) then QPI makes a whole lot of sense. However, if you’ve got a single socket system and aren’t running a lot of high bandwidth PCIe devices then QPI is overkill. This is what I was trying to saying in little words.

The differences for a typical user with 1 GPU (or two mainstreams ones) between 1366 and 1156 are about none, but if you intend on going on more high-end setups then the two system comes more apart than just PCI-E lanes.

I guess I'm not understanding exactly where you're coming from, but that's okay. You seem to be reaching the same conclusion.

FYI, from a diagram perspective, 1366 is

CPU
|
| QPI
|
V
X58 (Northbridge) ---> PCIe ( 2 x 16), DDR3 (three channels)
|
| DMI
|
V
ICH10


and 1156 is

CPU
|
| QPI
|
V
MCH (Northbridge) ---> PCIe ( 1 x 16), DDR3 (two channels)
|
| DMI
|
V
PCH


The only difference is that on 1156 the CPU and Northbridge are all on the same die or package. Yes, it means DMI is the only "customer visible" interface on 1156... but that's because it's a two chip solution instead of three chip. Makes for cheaper motherboards in the long run, but unless you're trying to do multi-socket (as you point out below), doesn't change the architecture.

Agreed on that. Sorry to be so pedantic-- I just see the "1366 has QPI, 1156 only has DMI" thing so often and people seem to be drawing the wrong conclusion for what this means in the real world (not saying you did).

I've been researching all week to find out whether or not the i5 or i7 1156 CPU is actually better than the i7 1366 CPU. My research lead me to believe that the i7 1366 is better than the i7 or 15 1156 CPU. I'm not a "Tech" but based on most of the Mobo specification seen for the 1366 and the 1156, i've concluded that the 1366 supports tripple channel, while the 1156 supports dual channel. I don't know about the PCI-e channel. Can you direct me to any information that may enhance my understanding on this.

Actually, 6 and 8 core proc announcements are due out by the end of this year and Intel has already stated they'll use 1366 socket.

And I do independently upgrade my CPUs from my Mobo.

Being able to fit into LGA1366 means absolutely nothing about how future proof current motherboards are. Put a Q9550 into an early LGA775 board and see what happens.