1366 vs 1156?

what will you be using the system for?

which platform will benefit you depends on the tasks you will require of it.

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.

Ill be using the system for gaming, video editing, all around daily use, music. Eventually programming, etc, when school starts back up.

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.

+1 - i5-750. Save the money for the GPU.

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

First off, what is your budget for your rig? I would suggest getting a newer X58 board that has usb 3.0 if your budget is around $800-1000plus. It will be well worth it getting this since you can use the full 32 lanes of PICe 2.0 for two gpus in crossfire of SLI eventually. You also now have at least 2 solid/cheaper choices for "budget" processors in the core i7920 and the 930. These cpu's stack up well against the core i5 and core i7 1156 chips.

The other thing is if you want to upgrade in 2-4 years time, you can still use your X58 for the 6 core cpus that will probably be the standard by then. At least you know that this motherboard can be compatible with hexa-core chips while the 1156 currently has no plans on catering for such resource intensive, server class chips.

If you really want to have a great gaming system, i would also advise you to get a Radeon 5850 at the very least and eventually Crossfire this, or a gtx470 and SLI it eventually.

If you're on a budget, the Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 is a great board for $105 shipped: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

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.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item...

vs

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item...

those look like the top 2 boards for around a 200-300 dollar budget, which is how much id like to spend on a mobo. any other reccomendations?

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...

what 1366 board do you guys reccomend?

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.

Same goes with 1366 as rumors are that 1366 will be getting phased out as well. I think budget is going to be really important in deciding. It's not worth going 1366 and skimping on other components like GPU. For gaming for example, I think you'd fine i5 750 and 5970 better than i7 930 with a 5870 which if you factor in MOBO and RAM costs should be roughly the same

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

i would say 1156. many people think differently, but i don't see how they could possibly come to that conclusion.

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

Latest speculation I've seen says Sandy Bridge will be an 1155 socket. Don't know if there's anything definitive yet.