Matrox Parhelia OEM vs Retail

[Fisheagle]

Can you folks tell me the difference between the Retail and OEM versions of the Parhelia. And how do you tell them apart?

Thanks

Fish

[Fisheagle]

I just received this ans. from Matrox:

Matrox Parhelia Retail
(PH-A128R) 128 MB
Core CLK: 220 MHz
Mem CLK: 275 MHz

Matrox Parhelia Bulk
(PH-A128B) 128 MB
Core CLK: 200 MHz
Mem CLK: 250 MHz

notice the differing part numbers (which should be found on a white sticker on the back of the card).

[poopeyhed2]

I don't know if you noticed, but another difference is the core and memory speeds between the two.

[Fisheagle]

Does anyone know how much the lower memory speed affects real world performance?

[PresterJohn]

matrox support could probably better tell you re:FPS on the oem card, but i would say that the differences in speed are probably neglible.

if the oem card is significantly cheaper, i would go for it.

[eagle1]

Really not by much. And there's probably an overclocking utility out there for Matrox cards so ... you can easily achieve the stock speeds!

You shouyld ask Kruzin (via PM or email) a Techimo member. Or you can just visit Kruzin's home over at:

http://forums.matroxusers.com

The performance impact is marginal for most tasks. The only difference will be gaming, and as eagle commented, a simple overclock can resolve the problem with little effort.

Now to my opinion.... I would buy the retail card, directly from the Matrox online store. This way I know the most support dollars goes back to Matrox itself, thus insuring the continued existence of Parhelia driver development and hardware support.

Matrox is not exactly your typical video card manufacturer, as it is a privately held company, thus I want to show my support in the best way possible: money.

Robert Richmond

[Fisheagle]

Thanks for all the input folks.

Hey! RobRich... Do you really have 23822 posts????

Do you really have 23822 posts????

Yes, according to site rules. Each news post counts for five forum posts. Works that way for everyone, admins and users alike.

Robert Richmond

[poopeyhed2]

Well, this is a little off topic, so sorry

But I think RobRich passed Socal in the number of posts . Socal used to have the most.