ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-02-05, 23:34:LGA 775 is remarkable in many ways, not least of which is its power increase over the years, but also the fact that it covers the diabolical Pentium 4 all the way to some sublime Core 2 CPUs of the late noughties.
Part of what's crazy about LGA775 to me is just how many LGA775 systems there were around me. I built... at least four that I can remember... for myself. (I was about to say 3, then it suddenly occurred to me that I was forgetting an LGA775 box I used as a router for my home network for a decade) My dad had an LGA775 Dell desktop; my mom had a Gateway all-in-one LGA775 desktop; my aunt had a Dell LGA775 desktop. I think all my friends, even one who is a huge AMD fanboy, had LGA775 systems. A big part of it, too, has to do with Windows 7 - there were a lot of affordable LGA775 OEM systems, especially C2Q 8xxxs, around the time of the launch of Windows 7 and it just seemed like an opportune time to upgrade aging Windows XP, especially HotBurst, machines.
And even building your own, LGA775 was affordable. I was just checking some old emails - my P5QL-E Asus LGA775 board cost me $116 CAD. An E5200, the first of three CPUs to go in that board, was $90CAD. I forget how much I paid for the Q8...300?... that replaced that E5200, but I think it was like $150CAD. Try getting that kind of value today, you just can't.
And my guess is that a good number of C2Q 8xxx systems acquired for Windows 7 are still around and kicking today with their free Windows 10 upgrade, and this is why Microsoft is so eager to cut them off with their nonsense hardware requirements for Windows 11. The longevity of those C2Qs, especially if they somehow got an SSD along the way, is just... incredible.