OEM card vs. retail

[Ike0069]

I normally like to but the retail version of hardware (except drives), but I've noticed the OEM 9800 Saphire card seems to be a built by ATI board. If so, then it should be a top quality board. If you get OEM, what are you not getting? It seems like your only missing the pretty box. Anyone have experience with this, particulary this card?

 

[AnAndAustin]

😉 Not that partic card but basicly when going for OEM over retail you tend to lose the fancy box, manual, longer warranty, free sw and any bundled extras (though TVout lead is often still supplied). So you get the same card offering the same perf and o/c'ability, you just lose the frills. In the days of the Rad8500 you often did lose clock speed, o/c'ability etc but that type of thing is only really seen now in the budget end of the gfx card market like the GF4MX, Rad9100/9200 and GF-FX5200. So long as you're buying at least Rad9500, GF-FX5600 then you should find ALL the cards of the same range of card are for all intents and purposes identical, that's across all manu's too not just OEM vs retail.

😀 If the price is significantly lower go for it, if it's more marginal consider what you are / may be losing although it could still be easily worth it!

 

[ronterry]

That's pretty much it, and you probably won't even get drivers.
Other then that, it's a great bargain for the same hardware as retail.
Some times theres a special version for OEM?ers. The part would usually be clocked a little slower, since it didn?t pass there model specs or what not. But you save tons of money!!!
I don?t think that?s the case with the 9800 though?

One thing to note is that OEM products usually don't have the same support or warrantee as retail. Since OEM is for builders, the builders are responsible for support.
This is why I would purchase retail Microsoft OS's for machine I assembled and sold. Even though It cost me more, I could pass off support to Microsoft. 🙂

Ron