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I have a few old desktop machines laying around that have fried motherboards, but everything else works. I previously thought you needed to buy a motherboard from that generation in order for it to work, but then I came across a few modern motherboards that claim to support that old processor (6 years old)...so now I'm confused...I thought this wasn't possible.

Old Desktop

ASUS P5GD1 with Pentium 4 530 (90nm) and uses DDR RAM

NEW Motherboard

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3743# Click on the button that says "CPU Support list" it states that it supports the above processor...

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  • How did you manage to fry the motherboard without frying at least part of the rest of your system as well? Also, as the accepted answer states, do note the difference between 'modern' and 'new'.
    – user366447
    Dec 17, 2014 at 13:47
  • @mast I think I meant fried as in some part of it doesn't work and thus won't turn on.
    – J Lee
    Dec 17, 2014 at 21:22

3 Answers 3

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It may be a currently produced motherboard, but it's not a modern one - Core i5 processors came out 2 years ago and their second generation refresh came out earlier this year, and we're 6 months from the expected next generation. It uses the G41 Express chipset, released in 2008, which supports PCI Express 1.1, but PCI Express 3 came out in 2010. The processor socket LGA 775 has been superceeded twice.

It will work because it is a motherboard for that generation - it happens that that generation lasted a long time (Pentium 4, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo), but it is quite a while since Core 2 Duo was state of the art.

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  • Thanks, didn't know that, I've been out of the hardware game for a while, and I thought of putting together a homeserver with the spare parts I have lying around.
    – J Lee
    Oct 7, 2011 at 3:23
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If the motherboard manufacturer says that it supports it, then you should be fine. They don't just put things there.

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I previously thought you needed to buy a motherboard from that generation in order for it to work

You need a board with a compatible physical and electrical interface and a BIOS that recognises the processor.

When Intel makes a major breaking change they change to a different socket. Within a socket using newer boards with older processors is generally fine, using older boards with newer processors is sometimes but not always possible with a BIOS upgrade.

LGA775 had an unusually long life. It was introduced in december 2004 and remained the top desktop socket until November 2008 when LGA1366 was introduced. LGA775 was also unusual in that intel introduced a major redesign of the processor cores while keeping the socket the same.

Even after it was no longer the top socket LGA775 lived on. LGA1366 was a high end platform with a high price tag to match and no integrated graphics. LGA1156 was good for gamers but less suited to buisness desktops due to the lack of a quad core processor with integrated graphics.

Finally in January 2011, Intel released quad core processors with integrated graphics on a new socket LGA1155. It rapidly took over the mainstream desktop market from LGA775 and LGA1156 and even poached some of the high end market from LGA1366.

More recent sockets have had much shorter lives. Usually it is only a couple of years before a direct successor comes out.

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