Testing OpenFOAM parallel computing
 

I am new to OpenFOAM and am looking at hardware for testing it out. I am wondering if anybody has any guidance about the two different possibilities I was thinking of:

2 separate workstations (2x dual core) = total 8 cores connected by gigabit ethernet
vs.
1 single workstation (2x quad core) = total 8 cores

The separate machines are overall lower cost but would this truely show the parallel scalability (up to 8 cores) that is achievable?

The purpose of these machines are to check capabilities of OF as well as see how it scales in parallel.

Thanks,
Jason Ryon