OEM or Retail
 

I want a P4 northwood 2.2 but the oem price is almost $60 below the Retail price. What exactly is the difference between an OEM cpu and a retail CPU, the warrente, the lack of a heatsink fan, or is there an internal difference like lower quality, less ability to overclock. If its just the warentee or the fact its in a plain white box then I will go with OEM, if it actually affects performance then I will bite the bullit and go retail

Grep

it's box, warrenty, hsf. no quality differances.

infact, I think some big oems may get better quality chips to be completely stable with a silent hsf setup. (but thats just a crazy theory)

But that's for OEM as in manufacturer... not OEM box.

OEM is basically the same as a retail product save foe documentation, packaging, and in the case of a cpu the heatsink and warranty.

I always buy oem chips because i always get an aftermarket heatsink. I have purchased around 10 chips and all but one have been oem(the celeron 300a oc to 450).

You want to concentrate on the week number and plant the chip came from, not whether it is oem or retail...

ok, I am looking for a P4 2.2 478 Northwood, how do I select the week number thats the most desireable and how do I know which plant number produced it. I assume the code on the chip will tell me, is there a document that decodes this info?

Gre[