Question Socket 775 and 4K?

[aewhistory]

So I am just getting back into building computers after a very long hiatus. Tens years away because of health problems (thank you Lyme Disease and associated auto immune problems) and raising my kids (they’ll be ten soon… where did the time go!?). So I have quite a bit of hardware from another era and I’d like to make use of it for now and slowly upgrade. I’m going to make each of my kids a modest machine from two of my socket 775 motherboards (I have 5-6 of the 775s) and I would like to use another for an HTPC. I know they are powerful enough for an HD setup. Frankly, the video Card matters more, right? But is it even possible to eek out enough performance to get a 4K signal worth a damn? This I don’t know as I have never tried.

Here are the boards I have:
Foxconn p9657ab
Asus P5ND2 SLI
Asus P5Q Pro *
Asus P5WDG2 WS Pro (two of these)
and maybe one or two more similar boards laying around.

I even have some old 478 and 423 boards laying around….. I’d love to find a use for them but this isn’t it.

Afaik, all of the 775 boards support 8gb of RAM and I have plenty of high quality RAM (Corsair Dominator and OCZ) still around. So what else would you need or want to know? Many thanks folks!



*- I think this is my preference. It can support an e6800 AND has a coaxial digital output so the DACs in my Theta can do you he stereo processing and/or HT audio processing in my marantz or if I replace the marantz with a Lexicon. However, I’m not set on this and I’m open to suggestions.

 

[Alabalcho]

Do you think your kids can make the difference between HD and 4k?
You haven't said what GPU you will pair with these MBs...

 

[aewhistory]

Do you think your kids can make the difference between HD and 4k?
You haven't said what GPU you will pair with these MBs...

oops, my bad. I have a few CPUs I can pair with the different boards. Here they are as best as I can remember:
Q6600
Q6800
P4 2.6ghz (can’t recall the model)
E680
D 840

I also might have one or two more around. The only board that is severely limited is the P5ND2. It is stuck with the D840, which is a fine enough CPU if your standards are low like me, but nowadays it would definitely be a dog methinks.

You ask a good question. To be honest, I doubt they can, especially if they weren’t already looking for it. However, part of the reason for building this HTPC is for the family and friends who come over. Over the years I have built a very impressive home theater (excuse me, I think I pulled a muscle patting myself on the back 😉 but between my own limitations working and other priorities we just won’t have much left over to spend in an HTPC. I have a Beautiful case from before I got sick, but all these parts have aged considerably. Back when I started this HD was much newer and my intent was simply to build a good HD HTPC. Now the transition to 4K is underway and I’m trying to figure out if I can keep this stuff relevant a little while longer without spending much money.

Anyway, I hope that helps a little. If it were just the kids I think they wouldn’t care as long as they can play their games, but squeezing out 4K movies would be awesome for the folks who come over and watch stuff. I’m just too out of touch with current tech to be sure what to do.

EDIT: thanks again and sorry my messages are so verbose. Brevity is not my strong suit. I’ll tell you all about it but…..

 

[aewhistory]

No one? I thought for sure someone would take the challenge of discussing how to get 4K movie output for a Core2 or something like that. I’m fairly sure it can be done.