Radeon OEM and Retail??

[MacrossPlus]

I was reading up on the Radeon and I saw something that said that the OEM is clocked at 166 and the retail is clocked at 180 + ... why is it like that? If I were to get an OEM, is there any way that I could raise the clock speed to retail specs? Please reply, thanks!

Steve

 

[Comp10]

I really have no idea why ATI decided to clock the OEM slower, maybe they wanted to make sure they were more stable in OEM machines, or to save money, I dunno. As for which you should get, I would suggest the retail. Normaly the OEM Radeon will have slower 6ns memory, while the retail will have 5.5ns. Some people have been able to overclock OEM Radeons to retail speed, but with the slower memory I think its pretty rare.

 

[UsandThem]

Most chipset companies do that. When they make a batch some can run higher than others on the same wafer.

Intel and AMD do this all the time. On one wafer you could (and almost always do) have all different speed CPU's.

That is why the Geforce2 Ultra is so expensive, those GPU's are hand picked by NVIDIA, because they can faster than the others.

 

[Taz4158]

The OEM clocks easily to 183.

 

[kcrowder]

Yes but the retail clocks easily to 210.

 

[teiresias]

I thought the only Radeon clocked at 183 was the retail 64MB cards. The retail 32MB cards are clocked at 166 as well I believe, but obviously they aren't necessarily OEM.

 

[lifeguard1999]

As I understand it, there are several different Radeons out there:

1. Retail Radeon 64MB @ 183 MHz.
2. OEM Radeon 64 MB @ 166 MHz.
3. Radeon 32 MB (SDR/DDR/AIW) @ 166 MHz.

I have read that some SDR Radeons are clocked at 160 MHz, but I do not know that for certain.

 

[CQuinn]

When ATI was about to release the first Radeons (the Retail 64MB) there was a shortage on
the 5ns DDR memory they originally wanted. So they had to go with 5.5ns memory for
183MHz for the 64MB card.
Since even the 5.5ns was hard to find, and there was little performance difference
overall for most users, ATI also decided to use 6ns memory for the other DDR cards
in the Radeon lineup. The OEM and the other retail cards all have the same memory,
it is no slower, and in theory just as overclockable, as the OEM 64MB cards.

Currently there are beta versions of Powerstrip that can overclock the Radeon cards,
and rumors of other Radeon tweakers in the works.

 

[SteelyKen]

Retail Radeon 64Mb is 183 Mhz.

 

[fastrabbit]

The 32meg retail radeons come with a $50 rebate. That is what helped me make up my mind and go with retail.

 

[lifeguard1999]

Just got a 32MB DDR Radeon. Only the 64MB version is clocked to 183 MHz. The rest are clocked at 166 MHz. I o/c'd mine to 200 MHz with no problems. I have yet to try it higher.

 

[bonkers325]

retail has a faster clock speed on ram and core

cheers,
bonkers325