OEM vs. Retail

[MacaroneePenguin]

What the difference in OEM version of a CPU and the retail version except the price and the nice packaging?

Thanx

[topane]

A retail cpu will have a warranty and cooling. An OEM cpu usually comes w/no fan or heatsink, and (I think) comes with a 30-day warranty. Personally, I would pick buy the OEM cpu--if it's a bad chip, it *should* fail within a couple of days.

[MacaroneePenguin]

Thanx guys, appreciate it...

[chinnboy]

I know they are approved, but how good are the fans and heatsinks that come with retail box chips, particularly AMD?

[Bires]

The stock HSFs are sufficient, but far from excellent. If you don't need the warranty, get oem. you save 5-10% on your purchase-money you can use to buy a superior heat sink and fan.

FYI: I've been using retail CPUs/HSFs for years now and have never had to use a warranty. I've taken a Pentium 166 to 225, a P2-400 to 500, and my P3-800 to 920.

[Tankman]

Someone named Steve Benoit gave an excellent and long explanation on another website of the difference between OEM and Retail. Here is an excerpt:

"All BOXED (!!!NOT INTENTIONALLY OEM!!!) 266MHz CPUs are manufactured using the copper manufacturing process at the Dresden Fab 30 plant. These are the highest performing CPUs offered by AMD and this fact is one of the best kept secrets in the computer industry.

The Boxed version rejects become either OEM 266MHz, Boxed 200MHz, or OEM 200MHz CPUs (going down the list, depending on the level of rejection) with their multipliers and frequencies being set based on the level of rejection (not acceptance).

The Texas Fab 25 plant manufactures using only Aluminum and makes 266MHz OEM CPUs and 200MHz Boxed CPUs. In the case of rejects they become 200MHz Boxed CPUs or 200MHz OEM CPUs using the same practice as above.

This is the real reason of why SOME 200MHz CPU’s can be unlocked and run at 266MHz versus some NOT being able to. Chances are, your 200MHz CPU STARTED OUT LIFE as a 266, but it got cut during testing. In our experience, it is the copper processors that can be over-clocked to 266MHz while the aluminums usually can't.

This is also the reason why you shouldn't buy OEM CPUs as they are the lowest grade in the group, a little know fact that nobody (INCLUDING INTEL, BECAUSE THEY DO IT TOO) wants you to know about.

Steve Benoit "

You can see the whole post here:

http://www.community.tomshardware.com/community/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=comp_mainboards&Number=48865&page=&view=&sb=&vc=1#Post48865

[Bires]

Especially now, when the cost to retool a manufacturing plant is so high-companies like Intel and AMD can't afford to retool plants every six months. What will often happen is a plant will make, say P3-800Es. A lot (100 to 1000 in each lot) will be tested. Depending on how they test they will be ehrmarked for 800E retails, 800E oems, and then reduced speed oems.

I own a PII-400 that is a PII-450 with a fixed multiplier. Intel had to retool their plants and decided to retool the PII-400 plants to build PIIIs-leaving no plants allocated to build PII-400. (I read this somewhere a couple of years ago.)

(Also keep in mind that they rate them to perform in their operating ambient temperature. If you continuously operate your 'puter at a lower temperature and humidity than the top-end of the scale, you can often get better oc results. So, if you live in Juno, you will probably get better overclocking from a cpu than if you live in Mexico City.)