OEM E6400 or E6600?

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item...

OEM 6400 about 1$ less than Retail


http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item...

OEM 6600 about 5$ cheaper than Retail, What are you losing out here by not dishing out 5$ more and getting the Retail instead OEM?

nothing i guess. I just thought it was about a 30-40 price difference between the two. I don't need the stock HSF since I'm going with an AC Freezer 7.

Yeah, there really isn't much difference in price, plus with retail, you get the full warranty, and not the OEM 90 day ones (which is what some have).

what is OEM?

i am a noob at this

OEM = original equipment manufacturer (or white box).
See linkage:
OEM Definition
It pretty much means that it's a retai CPU, without the retail box, heatsink, or sometimes, a full warranty.

There's nothing wrong with OEM, as long as you have the other necessary items to use the OEM part. Some, like sound cards, might not come with cables, and just a driver disk. Graphic cards are usually packaged with just the driver disk.

It's sometimes a cheaper alternative than buying retail, but those days seem to be disappearing a bit. Before an OEM CPU was about $20-50+ cheaper, now, it's more around $5-18 cheaper. Look at newegg's pricing:
Intel's 805 PD costs $93 for retail, and 89 for OEM. AMD's 4600+ retail is $210 and the OEM is $199.

So, OEM use to be an upgraders choice, but nowadays, it seems like the difference isn't worth as much as it use to.

You don't want a core 2 duo sticker?

Oh, yeah...I forgot about the sticker in the retail box. LOL