OEM Question

[fufiter9246]

Hey guys, I just bought this:



Sapphire ATI OEM RADEON 9500 128MB DDR BULK

And I failed to realize that it was an OEM, I have an AMD Athlon 888 MHZ machine, currently I have GeForce2 GTS card in it and I'm replacing it with this one....what the hell is OEM and am I going to have to return this??? Please say it isn't soooo

[goldenbuddha]

OEM is just white boxed instead of retail boxed.

If you get Nvidia graphic cards, the OEM and Retail are exactly the same, across all brands.

But I remember the earlier Radeons were not like that, the OEM models were clocked slower than the retail models. ( I had one and returned it) But I am not sure if that is still the case now, as it was a while ago (The Radeon 8500)

Someone on the board will be able to verify if the OEM and Retail versions are the same.

[Atomic Rooster]

Original Equipment Manufacturer
is a company that uses product components from one or more other companies to build a product that it sells under its own company name and brand.

In a nutshell it means that it doesn't come with a fancy box and any extra software. I haven't heard of any differences between the newest Retail and OEM Radeon cards. It will be fine.

[fufiter9246]

whew you guys just saved me a heartattack.....do you like the gold plated fan? Looks pretty sweet, and Sapphire's have had a pretty good rapport so i hear too

EDIT: Furthermore, I heard that the Sapphire 9500 Pro's are already unlocked so I don't have to flash the bios, can anyone confirm this?