The issue with LGA775 (or anything newer) isn't the CPU itself, but the improvements since in the rest of the periphery.
Do you *really* need anything newer than LGA775 to run even Windows 8? Surprisingly, the answer is an absolute *no*, as there is a grand total of *one* feature in Windows 8 (Hyper-V) that absolutely positively is not supported in LGA775. (The rather amusing part is that merely by changing to a *server* version of Windows (specifically, Windows Server 2008 or later, including Server 2008R2 or 2012), you CAN run Hyper-V on LGA775 - my Q6600 dual-boots Windows 8 Pro x64 and Server 2012; while Windows 8 can't run Hyper-V clients, Server 2012 does.) You can add (or even boot from) an SSD with LGA775-based hardware, even hardware with chipsets such as the stumblebum that is the corporate-stable/consumer-stable G41.