Motherboard that will support 45nm Penryn quad (octa?) cores

[dawgma]

I intend to build a system within the next month. I am going to start with an E6600 and I expect to upgrade in about 2 years. I need to be fairly confident that the motherboard I buy now will still be able to support the future Penryn cpus (or Wolfdale... Yorkfield... whatever) with a 1333 FSB.

Can anyone recommend a board currently on the market that will satisfy this need?

All I have been able to figure out is that the recently announced bearlake chipset may be just what I'm looking for... but I confess that I don't really understand what this bearlake chipset is all about. Can we expect motherboards that have this chipset to be on the market within a month? Would this be as 'future-proofed' as you can get?

 

[jamiepotter]

I don't think Intel have even confirmed this. They really are annoying about this stuff. It will probably be a case of: well, it will work, but it won't work that well, a bit like core2duos on the older chipsets about now.

You should see this thread:
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Wait-Bearlake-boards-Q2-07-680i-965-ftopict228151.html

People know some stuff there!

 

[dawgma]

I actually replied to that thread earlier. I probably shouldn't have started this thread... I was not paying attention!

CLOSE THREAD: go here instead: http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Wait-Bearlake-boards-Q2-07-680i-965-ftopict228151.html

 

[Fedor]

Well that thread is more related to waiting for Bearlake, whereas what I'm truly interested in is whether the current 965, 975 or 680i-based motherboards will support the upcoming 45nm core CPUs... And that's sort of the OP's question too from what I can tell.

I too was screwed over a bit cause my 925XE chipset mobo (capable of 1066FSB no less) couldn't take anything past the crappy Prescotts and Ds. Now I was hoping to take a gradual upgrade path - get a new mobo whilst using my current Prescott and get a 45nm chip once I can.

Has anyone heard anything about whether existing boards will function with the new CPUs with just a BIOS upgrade hopefully?