Newbie requires Expert advice

[fijianflash187]

yo i am purchasing my first sytem from strach and am quite a newbie at all this, firstly I had a couple of ?? whats the diff betweem OEM and retail theres a pretty big $$ diff but is there any hardware diff other that software bundles e.g diff bewteen Athalon XP 1900+ OEM/REtail , RAdeon 8500 OEm/Retail, etc... Heres what i am looking at purchasing please give me ur advice on the system and lettem know if i should change anything ( i am going be using this machine for school stuff like word, excel, internet, games, watching divx's on tha big screen)

Soyo k7Dragon+
AMD Xp 1900+
Maxtor 80.0G ATA133 7200rpm 2M D740X-6L
Either the Leadtek Geforce-2 Titanium TH 64M DDR AGP4x w/ TV-out or Radeon 8500
Lite-on 24x10x40 cdrw
Pioneer dvd 16x slot
Creative Labs Inspire 5.1 5300 Subwoofer + 4 speakers 21W, RMS
using onboard sound and network card
Viewsonic G90f 19' mointor
In-Win S508 case w/300w ps

Thanx in adavance..

 

[E3Art]

difference between OEM and Retail...
in Processors the main difference is the warrenty, most of the time a processor will have a 3 year warrenty (Retail) and OEM will have 30 days. for other things the OEM versions dont come with manuals,Drivers, pretty boxes, good warrentys, cables...ect. the Retail version cost more but comes with all the extras and a good warenty. As far as the Radeon 8500 (thats what i have, i assume other cards are the same but i dont know) the OEM version runs at a lower clock speed and dosent come with the cables to hook up your TV or DVD, and the warrenty is generally 30 days.

I would think about getting the Radeon 8500 if i were you, you can find it online for around $250 mabey less. and it will blow the Gforce 2 out of the water.

 

[Siddhartha]

The retail AMD XP comes with a heatsink\fan and the OEM version does not.

 

[justinoh]

Pretty damn good system there. But...why go for onboard sound if you're gonna use the 5300's? I've got the same set of speakers and they sound awesome coupled with an Audigy sound card. Since you're spending this much, might as well go for a good soundcard as well. )

 

[veryape]

Wow, I learn something new here every day. I had no idea that the Radeon 8500 oem runs at a lower clock speed than the retail version. In fact, I didn't know oem had anything more to do with hardware than just the extras and a good warrenty. That's the first time I ever heard about it actually having anything to do with the physical quality of the product. That kind of sucks actually.

Sorry for cutting in on your thread there bud.

 

[ed21x]

it's pretty easy to flash the OEM to retail bios though, so physically, you're not really getting a different card.

 

[fijianflash187]

<< Pretty damn good system there. But...why go for onboard sound if you're gonna use the 5300's? I've got the same set of speakers and they sound awesome coupled with an Audigy sound card. Since you're spending this much, might as well go for a good soundcard as well. ) >>



i dunno ive been hearing that the soyo comes with a pretty decent sound card, would the 5300's not work?? or would i be getting the full potential out of em if i got a better sound card? ??

 

[Scifione]

ATi has released some OEM cards that were clocked slower than the Retail Version, but all of their OEMs are not clocked slower. It depinds on the model.

As for OEM Processors you can often get a 1 year warrenty by ordering the heatsink/fan from the same place.

For the most part OEM is Retail without the extras.

I have ordered A-I-W video cards and gotten all the extra cables and software/games that the retail had, so that is not always true.