RADEON8500 OEM vs RETAIL?

[jstutman]

how hard of a hit does going oem take on the retail. can you clock the oem to retail specs. what prices have you seen on the oem?

easy to overclock?

[Cisco Kid]

You may ahve a challenge getting to 275/275 with an OEm for the extra 40 I would buy retail flat out.

I love my Crystal Orbed 7500 running at 342/562

Cisco Kid:eek:

[flounder43]

If you get a real ATI Radeon, it won't matter if it is retail or OEM. The thing to watch out for is third party vendors that make their own cards with the Radeon chipset. They may use different specs, and different parts, just like Nvidia cards.

[funnyperson1]

Originally posted by flounder43
If you get a real ATI Radeon, it won't matter if it is retail or OEM. The thing to watch out for is third party vendors that make their own cards with the Radeon chipset. They may use different specs, and different parts, just like Nvidia cards.

actually the 8500 OEMs use different bioses which under volt it and run them at 250/250 so overclocking it 275 is a trick, but i have seen people able to flash their bios and get their OEMS up pretty high......

[flounder43]

I see. I stand corrected.

[It_The_Cow]

Problem is that OEM card sometimes use lesser quality parts, so the BIOS flash may not work perfectly (especially for the memory). Some people that have tried it have gotten artifacts. Others may not have. There should be a thread about the flash on the www.rage3d.com forums

[Maximus Nickus]

Get the Retail, although the OEM is slower its still one hell of a card!