I can't say Im a fan of the Open Box method of getting a discount. It's not so much because I know the MBs have all been tested for functionality.
It's more along the line of the missing accessory pack (SATA cables, chipset cooler, etc) and the rest of the
Open Box policy.
I'd actually rather see you get an X38 motherboard for the same price as the X48 open box.
@ BLACKSCI;
What you say is true enough. [:wr2:4] As long as you're gaming at lower resolutions, lower graphics options and lower quality (AA/AF) settings.
On the other hand if you're an average gamer you care as much (or more) about graphics quality than flat out FPS performance.
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is a game that uses multiple threads, as many as eight. In the benchmarkings below you'll notice a capture of
core activity as shown by Windows Task Manager.
The benchmarks were run at 1152x864 resolution with its default quality settings except texture filtering was set to trilinear, edge
antialiasing was disabled, and "Concurrent operations" was set to match the number of CPU cores available. The GPU was an 8800GTX.
In the Snow benchmark you'll see the game is already GPU bound at 1152x864 res and medium graphics settings. Not much evidence of quads
eating duals there.
In the Cave benchmark you'll see the quad core activity is higher and the quads pulling out good peformance gaps over dual cores - as you'd
expect to see in a non-GPU bound game. However once you run up the resolution to about 12x10 & above, add high graphics options and
add in some antialiasing you're back to being GPU bound. And it's not because the quads have lost any appetite. [:wr2:5]
(in the FiringSquad benchmarks above a HD3870 was the GPU in use)
BLACKSCI's "poll" about going from dual to quad and not finding any difference probably had more to due with GPU bound graphics than differences
in # or cores or levels of OC'ing.
I'm in favor of cinc going with the Q6600 for his goal of having components he doesn't have to upgrade over the next few years.
Just didnt want him to have to wonder why his new OC'd quad wasnt making a meal of the dual core CPUs.