I got a stupid newb question about that though, the boards I see rarely say anything about C2D and mostly say Pentium D.. Is that their short hand or a whole other CPU?
There's actually a decent number of motherboards out there that does support the Core 2 Duo. Click on the following list:
List of C2D compatible motherboards. - This list doesn't provide all the compatible mobos, but it is a start.
Another list of mobo using the P965 chipset.
There are a few chipsets used by these mobos. It would be best to go with the P965 or the 975X chipset. But those can be relatively expensive especially a mobo using the 975X chipset.
If I was on a budget, I would probably get the
ECS nForce 570 SLIT-A motherboard (click here). It is $80 after a $20 mail-in rebate. However, it will only work with DDR2 533 or DDR2 667 RAM that only needs 1.8v, any RAM requiring 1.9v or more will not work on this mobo.
Another mobo you may want to consider if $80 is too much and you don't want to deal with mail-in rebates is the
ECS P4M890T-M2 Micro-ATX mobo (click here) for $52. The good thing about this mobo is that you can use DDR 400 RAM and DDR2 533 RAM. But there are only 2 slot for each type of RAM, therefore you will only have 1GB of RAM should you decide to use the DDR 400 you have right now.
If it was me who had to selected a cheap motherboard, then I guess I would go for the
ECS P965T-A ATX mobo for $65 after a $20 rebate. The P965 chipset is designed with Core 2 Duo in mind. It supports up to DDR2 800 RAM.
I have no experience with the motherboards I mentioned above. I merely selected them based on price and user reviews. So read the reviews and decide for yourself which best fits your budget and needs.
Me? I have the
MSI 975X Platinum (Rev. 2) mobo, but it is $170. Then again it was $200 when I bought it.