I am going to be purchasing and building a computer sometime in the near future. I have been looking around and have been trying to find more information on the LGA 775 boards. Specificaly the one that i am looking at is the MSI "915P NEO2 PLATINUM 7028-020" 915P Chipset Motherboard For LGA 775 CPU. Along with this I was going to get an Intel LGA 775 Pentium 4 530 3.0 GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, Hyper Threading Technology. I am not big time into games, just want something fast for burning dvds, cds, and some light gaming. I guess im curious if this is worth the extra money or if I should stick to a 478 board and maybe go up to a 3.2 or 3.4. Thanks for any input anyone might have. I appreciate it.
For the money, unless you have to have an Intel system, you're going to find more grunt from an AMD-based system. If you lots of things at once, I can see an Intel P4 system being useful, simply because of the HyperThreading. With 95% of the LGA775 boards, you're looking at needing a new video card. I don't know what you have, but if you have something that still does well for you, you'll have to buy a new card, and anything good is going to run you at least $150, and probably closer to $200. The other thing that you may need to buy is DDR2. With all 925X and 925XE boards, it's a requirement. With some 915P boards, it's optional, but some of these may be either DDR or DDR2 only, although you should find a decent selection that supports both---but not at the same time. I'm not sure on a few things though: How much you want to spend, and what parts you'd like to keep from your current setup. The last thing would be what you play? If you want to play FarCry, a new video card might be in order. Conversely, if you're just going to play something like Quake 3, you may not need to get a new video card (pending what motherboard you get).
The LGA775 boards generally will have more features built into the mobo than 478 but they are more expensive and DDR2 isn't exactly cheap.
I have a little bit of money to spend and was looking at video cards along with DDR2. I actually found a 512 stick on newegg for around $85, and the new video card I was looking at was the MSI nVIDIA GeForce 6600 Video Card, 128MB DDR, 128-Bit, DVI/TV-Out, PCI-Express, Model "NX6600-TD128E". Both these would go with the LGA 775. I am selling my old system for 600 and had a little money left over from christmas, so i wanted to upgrade and build something new. I was just curious if im going to notice that big of a difference between the two, 478 or 775. I looked on newegg and priced out a system with the 775 and a system with the 478, and the difference was only about $80, so do you think the 775 would be worth that extra cash, knowing that i am going to have to get everything and start from scratch because im selling my curent setup? Thanks for the reply.
Although LGA775 doesn't make any significant performance hikes, it will be the more future proof socket to go for if you want Intel. The MSI 6600GT card is a good one to go for. Not only do MSI have good graphics cards the 6600GT will give you performance which will be noticably better than any last generation card. But also remember you don't have to go for something as new as that if you're ont really going to be doing a lot of heavy gaming. It depends on what you're going to be doing.
thanks for the reply, looks like I have a little bit of thinking to do. I appreciate the help and info
