AXIA is the stepping .... there seems to be some issue with how well AXIA cores from different weeks of production overclock. Many are saying that the latest AXIA cores from week 14-15 are not as good of overclockers as the cores from weeks 10-11.
As to the motherboard, you can probably pick up a decent one for under $100. But on the other hand a top notch IWILL or ASUS board will only run you a little more (both can be found for under $130) and offer many more features such as on board RAID, better cooling, jumperless setup, blah blah blah.