Mobo for Athlon II x 2...?

I use AutoCAD, so you lost me when you said "unless you use"... I don't see much of a problem since tech has to move forward. Prices on the older stuff will come down as the newer stuff replaces it. It's inevitable that that the good old stuff will sell out first and you'll be left having to settle, or move on to better things. Right now you can build a 3.2 GHz quad core Phenom II/AM3 with DDR3 RAM running 1333MHz+ and a great video card for around $800. That's progress. And better yet, in a few months you can count on that price dropping quite a bit...just like they did for the hardware that you're talking about.