That is a hard question to gauge since no one knows the future, but AMD and Intel have ON AVERAGE (not hard science) put out around two generations of processors for their sockets. It depends on how much the processor architecture changes from one generation to the next and if they have to change the dies. If you aren't going to upgrade for three year, you might be getting toward the end of life on your average Micro Center motherboard if you like to stay up to date. That isn't to say it won't still work, it just won't be cutting edge.