Retail or OEM AthlonXP?? Which one should I get?

[j@cko]

I fried an Athlon XP like just today, and it was bought from as used from some one on the net.
The way the XP was fried was very strange, because I was having a LAN with couple of friends and using the same expension core from the same plug. So it was kinda overloading the power I guess, so the power box thing jumped. I had to turn it off and on again.
Once I turn it back on, my friends' systems were fine and power on again. But when I tried to turn mine on, there was nothing. Then I smelled this strange smell coming out of the case. It was the CPU smoking...!
If I have the retail, could I get RMA if this happens again? Because I don't want to this happen again out of no where, and pay ANOTHER $100 some bucks on a CPU.

Thanks

 

[John]

OEM - 15 ~ 90 day warranty (usually) + no heatsink/fan
Retail - 3 yr warranty + heatsink/fan

 

[j@cko]

perhaps retail seems to be a wiser choice.

 

[John]

Absolutely, and it doesn't cost much more.

 

[cholley]

last time i bought procs, an oem 1700+ was $20 less than retail, but retail came with hs/fan and 3yr

 

[Siddhartha]

If you are not going to overclock get the retail cpu.

 

[j@cko]

<< If you are not going to overclock get the retail cpu. >>



I don't think it will make much impact on the overclockability, whether it's a retail or OEM.
And there is no way that AMD can detect that it is being overclocked... (Only if I unlock the CPU)

 

[Odoacer]

Right, but no sense in getting the extra heatsink and fan because you're going to want a more capable one for overclocking... the $20 saved from OEM is $20 towards a better heatsink/fan assembly. And overclocking voids your warranty, so the 3 yr issue is moot.

 

[j@cko]

ya, if I am to unlock the CPU, then that 3yr warranty is useless.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

buying from local store, oem is fine if you handle it properly.
buying from online, make sure the seller ships it in proper protection package.

 

[DT4K]

How does AMD know if your processor has been overclocked if you are just raising FSB and not unlocking the multi? Not that I am advocating being dishonest. I'm just curious.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

not sure about cpu, but for mobile phone, once I damaged an Ericsson phone, just called for rma, they even gave me their fedex account to ship it, received a refurb one very soon. Not a big deal to manufacturer, whenever a consumer asks for warranty, just give them a refurb first, it doesn't make sense to spend time and money to test or investigate the product first.