(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per (PeteCresswell):
Anybody got a take on how ancient/recent this one is?

Given that it is discontinued...
http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SLA9X.html

Given that it is Core 2 and LGA775, anything shipping new today
should work with it. You might, with some bad luck, be able to
buy a used LGA775 motherboard from Ebay which didn't support it,
but anything you can find for sale today would likely be OK.

Go to Newegg, select motherboards, Intel, LGA775, microATX, then
list the search result by price or by rating. If you select the
one which is slightly over $100, that will be a full sized
9.6" x 9.6" motherboard. A $50 board will only have room for
two DIMMs, and be 9.6" x 7.0". Select one with the onboard
peripherals and I/O plate connectors you want.

Then, visit the motherboard maker site, and check the CPUSupport
chart for that motherboard.

The E6550 is FSB1333, and a really ancient motherboard (like
my Asrock 4Core board with FSB1066 limitation), would not be
a good match. But anything produced half way through the span
of LGA775 products, should support FSB1333. Available
microATX LGA775 motherboards today, will either use DDR2
or DDR3 RAM (but not both), so take care to match the RAM
type, or be prepared to spend another $50 on new RAM.

Since you're fitting the motherboard to a strange case, it's up
to you to do a mechanical inspection, and see if placement of the
CPU cooler on the new LGA775 socket location, conflicts with
other mechanical structures inside the case. For example, a
BTX computer case, would not be a good project case for
an ATX motherboard, because the casing is "backwards". So use
your skills to analyse it for fit, before buying it.

You'll need some fresh paste when fitting the heatsink/fan to the
new CPU, so that's something else you should purchase if you don't
already have some.

Paul