Caveat Emptor
Someone expecting floating point performance should confirm the performance of what they are buying.
Buying individual CPUs (not computers with those CPUs in them) indicates a certain level of ability that the general public doesn't have (at the very least, replace a CPU in a motherboard) - to replace or match a CPU with a motherboard is not something I would expect the general public to be able to do. And to make his position worse, he bought two CPUs - he MUST have been certain about what he's buying.
I'd also relate this too buying packaged food - if you want to know what is in an item you buy at the store, the only relevant information on the packaging is the ingredients and nutrition information - everything else is marketing to induce you to pick that specific product over a competing product. Buying a food item and expecting it to have X in it (or more commonly now a days, not have X in it), and not reading the ingredients to confirm that X is present (or not present) is caveat emptor in action.
When I have a specific application in mind, I review relevant benchmarking information prior to making a purchase. I wouldn't expect that of someone who's going to do their e-mail, web browse and play farmville, though.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
