1366 vs 1156?

I am trying to decide which motherboard to upgrade too. Fist off is either 1366 or 1156, i want to have a i7 processor (80%) sure, or the i5, with 6 or 8 gb ram. I also need sata ports, for multiple dvd drives and ahrd drives. Ive been looking through the 1366 and the p6t looks good, but so does the evga x58. Does anyone have any reccomendations? Thanks.

It sounds like you're saying that you are looking for either a 1366 board to pair with an i7 or an 1156 board to pair with an i5. So, just to clarify, some i7 chips use a 1366 board and some use an 1156 board. You probably are aware of this, but it's not entirely clear so for the sake of anyone wandering in here who doesn't know the differece: the i7 9xx CPUs require a socket 1366 board, while the i7 8xx CPUs require a socket 1156 board.

i would say go for the i5 750 then.

LGA 1156 has an advantage in gaming due to the on-die DDR and PCI controllers. its only marginal, but given that its cheaper than an i7 on 1366 i'd say its worth getting. the 1366 was initially designed as a server board, and its strengths lie in heavy calculations like compression.

in gaming, the 750/860/920 are all about on par, and the other tasks you do wont see any advantage from an i7.

okay, so i5-750 is what you are suggesting?
and do you suggest a board that would go with that?

If you're on a budget, the Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 is a great board for $105 shipped: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] A-P55M-UD2

Where this board doesn't make sense is if you plan to SLI/CF, if you have a lot of expansion cards (most video cards will block a PCI slot leaving free a PCIe x16 running at x4 and a PCI slot, but the board already has Firewire, eSata and many audio option outputs), if you want the current implementation of USB 3.0/SATA 3 (in which case look at other Gigabyte or ASUS boards), or if you have something against mATX.

At this point, I'd go with 1366, as roumers are more or less confirming 1156 to have no future upgrade path as of when Sandy Bridge releases at the end of the year...

sorry, but this is just absolute speculation.

i find it amazingly hard to believe that intel would introduce a new platform, release a tonne of new processors for it, and then disregard it before they could possibly recoup what they spent to develop it.

the people spreading these 'rumours' are idiots. id anything, 1156 will live longer than 1366. 1366 is still for the ultra-high end (and with intel, that means ultra expensive) chips, this is not where the money is, and not where the majority of users buy.
given that the best gaming processor you can get is an overclocked i7 870 and the best budget CPUs are also on 1156 (and the two biggest earners are gaming grade and general usage grade) i would bet that 1156 will certainly be the prime focus of intel for the next few years.

so planning for the future, would 1366 or 1156 be the best route to go down?

what is this about sandy bridge?
is that going to be a whole new socket all over?