Windows 7 - Best processor for LGA775?

Seeing as my processor isn't great, I was thinking about upgrading in about a year or so. My mobo has an LGA775 socket and therefore only supports the Pentium and Core 2 series. Is the best processor I can get the Core 2 Extreme? And a I right in saying that it's slightly overpriced?

In the long run, would I be better off buying a new mobo an then getting an i7 or something similar? Any mobo recommendations? Or sockets?

Thanks in advance,
Jaidyn

The Core 2 Extreme is the best for LGA775. Yep. It should be Quad-Core.

If you can get something reasonable in the Q9x50 line they are all great chips. I have a Q9550. With the 12MB of L2 cache these things are great performers.

Asus maintains a list of CPUs supported by your board, and the necessary BIOS version for each:

ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Motherboards- ASUS P5G41T-M LX

I don't see any of the Extreme chips on the list. They may be hard to find anyway, at least new. The fastest CPU on the list is the 9650, but it's expensive (over $300US, new, from www.newegg.com).

The Socket 1155 chips are recommended at the moment, especially those with unlocked multipliers (I5-2500k, I7-2600k). (It's difficult to overclock anything but the chips with k suffixes.)

The recommendation will probably be different in a year's time. It's possible that AMD's forthcoming CPUs may be the enthusiast choice again. (I'm not betting that way, though.)

Since your ASUS board supports the 45nm CPUs, the QX9650 is the fastest CPU you can get in a LGA775 socket. I upgraded from an E8400 to the QX9650 last year & the improvement is noticeable. If you run CPU intensive apps that currently max both of your cores, it's much better to have 4 cores!

I bought mine used on Ebay. The seller had great positive feedback. The QX9650 works great & overclocks easily.

My motherboard box says it support Core 2 Extreme.

Would I be better of getting an i7 (that one perhaps), with a new mobo?

If you are going to upgrade, I personally would go to a current platform, such as the i7 LGA1155. There is no "future proof", and it will require new Ram, etc. But to sink more money into your old platform, for perhaps negligible performance gain... I understand $ is an issue, but unless you NEED a new CPU, you might be better served to save for a newer PC. IMHO. A Guy

I see what you mean, Bob - but if you click on the "overview" tab on that page from your link, it does include the Extreme chips & 45nm.

The Q9650 is a 45 nm part. I have no explanation as to why the Extreme CPUs aren't on the list. (I thought that they were identical to the regular CPUs, except for having an unlocked multiplier, and a high price.)

Spend the extra and get the 2600k, with its unlocked multiplier. Get a third-party CPU cooler to match, to make the CPU overclock more reliably.

That's if you're upgrading soon.

You may be able to re-use your DDR3 RAM. Is it 1.5V or 1.65V? Socket 1155 seems to prefer 1.5V.