Wondering how the GeForce 8800 cards (including the recently released 8800 GTS 320MB) perform with slower Core 2 CPUs? If so, you'll definitely want to check out this article. The chaps over at FiringSquad have tested Core 2 CPUs ranging from the E4300 up to the Core 2 Extreme X6800. Here's an excerpt:

At its stock speed of 1.8GHz, the E4300 was largely able to keep up with the GeForce 8800 GTX, there were only two cases (Quake 4 and more urgent, HL2: Lost Coast) where the 8800 GTX really could stand to benefit from a faster CPU, or a little bit of E4300 overclocking. The E6400 was also CPU-bound under Lost Coast, with the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB delivering the exact same performance with the E6400 as the 8800 GTX. Fortunately by 1600x1200 this problem largely went away for the E6400.

In any case, the fact that we weren't as CPU-bound as we'd feared is a good sign for the Core 2 architecture, although clearly as Intel introduces the Core 2 architecture at lower price points, say for instance, a Core 2 Duo E4200 or E4100, you'll want to be careful. Fortunately Intel's Core 2 CPUs have proven to be excellent overclockers, with chips scaling well over 1GHz beyond their stock clock speeds. Therefore if you do intend on pairing a high-end card like the GeForce 8800 GTX with a less expensive CPU, it becomes more important that you OC the processor so the graphics card and CPU are well balanced. You don't want to get stuck in a situation where the graphics card is held up by the processor if you can avoid it.

Obviously as more graphically demanding games like Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 are released later this year this problem will be less important. As it stands today though the Core 2 CPU line is pretty well equipped to take on the GeForce 8800 GTX, even if you're relying on one of the budget chips like the Core 2 Duo E4300. Just OC the chip a little if you can...