Hey everyone. Hoping to get some advice on this.

There is a great open box deal on a CPU at Newegg but it is an open box cpu. I have never bought an open box anything and I know they have a return policy of 15 days. Has anyone here purchased a open box cpu before?? Its 50 less then the current oem cpu so is it worth the risk??

not really. CPU is core for a PC, why skimp on warranty and quality?

I have purchased an open box CPU from Stalliontek.com and I would suggest never ever purchasing anything from them. They sold me an engineering sample (ES) CPU, which they are not suppose to do. In addition, it will not work properly, crashes and such, without a voltage increase.

However, you are purchasing from New Egg and they have a great customer service policy. So, I would say go for it.

I agree, Newegg will go to the end of the earth for you. They are absolutely amazing with their Customer Service.

Most open box cpu's at newegg are for one of three reasons.
1 Wrong stepping. The original buyer wants a monster OCer.
2 Board not compatable. It can be confusing.
3 Stupidity. Most rma's are for parts that are fine, it's the builder who is most often broken.
Newegg does test the part before they resell, so odds are in your favour.
On the other hand, if it looks like the heat spreader has been removed, and stuck back on, send it back.

As much as I've heard about NewEgg's great reputation, I just happened to read this last night and I don't think I'd ever touch an Open Box product.

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-Open-B [...] -to-a-scam

Hey, open boxes are just people who decide they don't want something. Normally has no heatsink & freebies included...

Well that article scared me off. I love newegg and have used them religiously for the past 4-5 years but this one I'll take a pass at. Thanks everyone.

amdfangirl, but as the article points out how do you know what those people did to it before they returned it? You would figure that anyone who orders a CPU or other top end component would know what it's all about before they pay to have it shipped. It's not like you pull the CPU out of the box and don't like the looks of it. Also, with Open Box, it's not like you save 50% or anything. You are lucky to save a few bucks and you take a huge risk.

True... open boxes are ok ONLY when you want to ship alot things back... Normally the result of bad overclocking...

Sure. I can certainly see somebody who wants to try to max out their new rig that they experiment with an identical CPU to find the right settings. Why risk your own when you can just mess around with a second one that you can return and get your money back? Especially from companies who seem to bend over backwards to keep their customers happy like NewEgg? I'll be damned if I spend my money to buy someone else's experimental returns. That article really opens your eyes.

That's why its cheaper!

Cheaper, but not enough. I've been looking at a few open box specials and few if any of them are more than 10% discounted. Given that you may be buying a chip that has been tortured to within an inch of its life, I think that is nowhere near enough of a discount to take that sort of chance.

Okay, you win! =)

I ordered an open box 'boxed' Celly and got $5 off retail. When the cpu arrived and I pulled it out of the box there were brown scorch marks around a dozen or so pins.

I printed out my RMA form and sent it back without bothering to install it ...