What are your opinions on OEM hardware and (OS) software?

i'm in pre-planning stages for my first build and i'm wondering what's the general consensus of the experts here at this forum. Are OEM's risky? are they just as reliable as retail and therefore worth the savings?

thanks,

Marsh

Oem hardware is the exact same hardware as retail, and is just as good.
It will not come in a fancy package, and will not include anything extra like cables, cooler, instructions, software, or drivers.
Intel oem cpu will have a 90 day warranty, vs. 1 year for retail.

You can pay less for a oem copy of Vista.
For that, though, you can't call microsoft for support. The oem copy is, in theory good for installation only on the original PC which is defined by the motherboard. Mostly, though, they will let you reactivate it on another motherboard if it was defective.

thanks to both who have replied so far.

It's the exact same product but usually the only difference between OEM and Retail is the fancy packaging, extra peripherals like cables and manuals and sometimes the warranty.

For example:
For CPUs - OEM gets you only the CPU no heatsink and sometimes only a 30 or 90 day warranty instead of the retail 3 year warranty.

For Hard Drives - You usually get the exact same warranty as a retail unit except no manuals or cables.

Just make sure you read over the item description before you buy.

Ummm....I'm pretty sure the warranty is 3 years for a retail cpu.

Ummm....I'm pretty sure the warranty is 3 years for a retail cpu.
zzf: I think you are correct.