The CPU socket is a portion of the motherboard that holds the CPU. There are different socket types used by Intel and AMD processors. Socket types include LGA sockets like LGA775 which are used by Intel Core 2 Duo processors and PGA sockets like Socket FM2 which is used by AMD Trinity APUs and supports DDR3 memory. Processor sockets differ in the chip manufacturer supported (Intel vs AMD), number of pins, and features including memory support and number of PCIe lanes.