Will an i3 1155 work in a 1366 motherboard? Other options?
 

I'm building a cheap gaming PC, and I've got it to about $600 with fairly good parts. I want to build it to be upgradable, so I would like to get a motherboard with 1366 compatibility. The processor I was looking at was the i3-2100 Sandy Bridge clocked at 3.1, but it's an LGA 1155. Will it work on a 1366 motherboard, like the Gigabyte GA-X58 which is what I'm looking at?

Also, if you'd like to point out advice for the other parts, here's a complete list

Seagate Barracuda ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - $40
HIS IceQ Turbo H677QNT1GD Radeon HD 6770 - $135
COOLER MASTER eXtreme 5002 - $40
Kingston 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 - $35
Intel Core i3-2100 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor - $125
Thermaltake V4 Black Edition Gaming Chassis Mid Tower - $40
Gigabyte GA-X58 - $190

Thank you very much!

NO IT WILL NOT WORK! DO NOT DO IT, DO NOT TRY IT!! The socket needs to match..

If you want upgradability, you should probably go for a Z68.

as per above.

look up socket,in this case 1155,pick a cpu,an i3 like you did,then look at 1155 motherboards. cheap pout if you will not get
an i5 or i7 later on. stay with giga,or asus,or msi.

do not cheap out on psu,and video card.

corsair,seasonic,antec.

hd6950,gtx 560 ti

Would a Z68 motherboard allow me to upgrade to new i7's later on? I don't want to have to upgrade my motherboard for at least one generation... Thank you for your help though

The i7 you would upgrade to later on would have to be lga 1155. The new chips coming out soon are lga 2011, which would not be compatible with the 1155 boards out now. 1155 and 2011 will run at the same time for quite a while.

That said, lga 2011 will be a very expensive platform it seems. It is aimed at enthusiasts, while 1155 is mainstream (but still performs excellent).

I am not sure what the lifespan of lga 1155 might be, but the socket was only introduced this spring, so it should be around for a while. IMO, its a great time to go 1155, as the boards have matured a little.

If you must have the latest, and you have a high budget, wait for 2011 (approx this xmas..maybe just after). Otherwise, 1155 should be a great platform for a while, and would be your best bet.

Thank you very much. My only problem is that I'd like a 6-slot memory mobo, and I can't seem to find any with the 1155 socket. Is that many slots only supported on the 1336?

Dual channel memory works fine. All P67s and Z68s have two dual-channel memory slots (so four slots total). 8GB memory isn't too expensive, and 4GB should suffice.

You tend to find 6 slots on a 1366 mobo because a 1366 cpu is triple-channel (two ram slots per channel). An 1155 cpu is dual-channel, so you tend to see 4 slots.

The new 2011 boards I have seen only have had 4 ram slots as well. Here is a thread with a few pictures:
Computex 2011 - X79 motherboards

My guess is that those 2011 boards will come with 4 slots like pictured, or 8 slots if mobo manufacturers can fit the ram slots, and if it will work reliably.

While there could be some odd-ball mobo out there that is non-1366 with 6 ram slots, it is not typical and I don't know of any.

So I think your requirements of future-proof, plus 6 ram slots might be unrealistic. Good news is, RAM is fairly inexpensive, especially if you are in the market/tier for 1366 and possibly 2011 boards.

Thank you very much. I'll go with the 1155, now to choose everything strategically to make this build fit my budget perfectly.

If you want your motherboard to last through more than one generation of processor, don't buy Intel.