How to determine the fastest processor for a motherboard?

[hassinator]

I'm thinking about upgrading my computer, basically it's an older style with a socket A and AGP slot. I want to upgrade to a AMD motherboard that has ePCI and/or SLI to allow me to play the latest games and still use some of my current equipment like hard drive, cd/dvd, etc. One of my main concerns with my upgrade is to save some money now and not get the lastest and greatest, but something that will work for now and be upgradable into the future. That way I can upgrade in stages and spread out the cost.

So my question is when shopping motherboards, how do you determine the upgradability of the CPU? Or in other words, how can you find out what the fastest processor is allowed by an idividual motherboard before you would have to get a new one to run the next latest processors?

[The Wise Monkey]

First up, Intel is definitely the way to go at the moment - they are a long way ahead of AMD when it comes to processors, both in performance and pricing.

The only thing that determines the processor you can use is the socket type of the motherboard. They will always say what the socket type is in the specification of a motherboard. Socket 775 is the latest Intel socket, and this has been around for a while, so it is a solid bet that it will be supported for a while yet. AMDs latest socket is AM2+.

My advice is to go for a motherboard that supports both DDR2 and DDR3 RAM, an Intel Socket 775 CPU, and has a 1333 FSB (front side bus), as this will allow you the most upgrade potential. :)