OEM vs Retail, and Reference Cards

[Rucus]

I have been considering buying a new graphics card for some time, money is an issue, but I will pay more for better quality. I am relatively sure of the store I will be buying from. I have bought systems there before, and they are of decent value, and so far have had no problems with hardware.

My question is of advantages to OEM vs Retail, as well as the nVidia Reference card. The prices are as follows:

ASUS V8200T5 GeForce3 Ti500 64MB DDR $539
ASUS V8200T5 GeForce3 Ti500 Deluxe 64MB DDR $579
ABIT Siluro GeForce3 64MB w/ TV-Out $518
NVIDIA GeForce3 64MB w/ TV-Out (S-Video & DVI) OEM $375

ATI Radeon 8500 64MB DDR OEM $342
ATI Radeon 8500 64MB DDR Retail $395

I'm not really interested in game packs, and 3d glasses, so they won't influence how great a card is. I put the radeons in for comparison reasons, but I have considered them as well.

Mainly, why is the nVidia card so damned cheap?

All prices in CDN$ ($1.60CDN = $1.00USD)

-Rucus


Q : Is Dvorak better than QWERTY?
A : Only if you use a shared computer.

 

[FatBurger]

I'd recommend the 8500, since there's such a price difference. The difference isn't that huge here, and that's actually a really good price for an 8500, once you convert it.

The nVidia reference card probably isn't actually built by nVidia, though it might be. It's a good price, but beware of some 2nd rate company that is afraid to even put their name on the card, preferring to call it an "nVidia reference card". That most likely just means they followed the nVidia recommended design.

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[Rucus]

Is there any performance difference between the OEM and Retail 8500s?

Q : Is Dvorak better than QWERTY?
A : Only if you use a shared computer.

 

[pr497]

yes...only like a 10% decrease in performance on the OEM (retail is 10% faster).
they lowered the clock speed of the gpu and memory to about (correct me if im wrong anyone) 250/500
the retail is about (again...correct me if im wrong) 275/550.
but that doesn't really matter though because you can overclock the oem card to retail speeds (i dont personally know how though).
either way...you'll get a good card (i have a retail R8500 myself....i didnt buy the oem because i wanted the game that was bundled w/ the retail card...which was counterstrike with truform coded into the game )

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[xxsk8er101xx]

them good prices.

and yes there is a difference between oem and retail. OEM's are usually slower then the retail. Plus you get the cool lookin box with a retail. So buy a retail card. You also get the full warranty!

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