if you want to wait for quad core do that, it not, get a dual opteron system with dual cores like the 285 the only problem there is its like 1100 dollars per chip, so that about eats your entire budget, id go for 2x opteron 252’s just becuase its a much better platform than the older Xeon’s which dont have an onboard memory controler. Core2 will give you two cores on a single chip, but, this dosent mean its faster, as they will still be sharing the same bus and memory. As long as you are getting an opteron board that has multiple memory banks, one for each chip, like a few of the tyan boards, its been so long since i looked at opteron boards im not sure whatelse is out there.
just some thoughts
