I am stuck with snow leopard?

I just bought a 17inch Aprill 2006 2.16 Macbook Pro 1,2, model # A1151 to replace my dying pia early 2008 15inch A 1260 that has had the logicboard replaced twice now and Nvidia is still causing issues. I have been reading on Apple and wikipedia, and according to them the highest OS X I can run on the new machine is snow leopard. Am I truly stuck with that? I would think that if this pia A1260 can run OS X 10.8.5, then couldn't the new one also? I could be wrong, so I figured I would ask the mac guru's out there. Also anyone know where I can buy a logicboard for the April 2006 17inch Macbook Pro that has a faster chip then the stock 2.16?