Retail - OEM

[ScottiB]

ALXAndy, trying to cause trouble again?

You've been an active member here long enough to have seen one of the many threads on our binning process by now, but I'll repeat it for your benefit.

I buy OEM CPUs especially for binning, often buying specific batches. This stock is kept separate to Gibbo's stock and all of my stock is consumed in systems.

As for the legality of selling OEM CPUs, you simply don't have a clue. Any reseller can, and always has been able to buy OEM CPU's and sell whether they are an SI or not. There is a pretty interesting thing about CPUs, unless you plan to use them for decoration, a customer is only ever going to buy one to fit it into a system, which makes them their own OEM. This is exactly the same logic behind OEM operating systems, OEM Hard Drives, OEM Optical Drives...etc etc etc

 

[new boy]

so bad clocking 6700k (or whatever) CPUs end up in systems with h(whatever) motherboards?

 

[Mustang]

I buy OEM CPUs especially for binning, often buying specific batches.

I longingly await the day we can pay a premium for a binned CPU rather than having to punt for a whole system, half the fun of getting a new PC is putting it all together and seeing how far you can push that overclock, no fun if someone else does it all for you.

 

[ScottiB]

we sell last gen cherry picked CPUs in the clearance section. Due to their overclocking capabilities these are often capable of speeds far in excess of a decent current gen chip. As 8Pack keeps telling me, he prefers 4770K to 4790K every day of the week. In addition to this we occasionally sell off excess cherry stock as Extreme bundles. Keep an eye open for these.

We split chips into 3 or 4 pots depending on how varied they are. Haswell were average, good, Infin8 or 8pack, Haswell-E is a little more consistent so there are only three pots for that.

Average chips go into systems with no OC, aimed at professional customers who have no interest in overclocks or those on a tight budget with cheaper coolers/motherboards/PSU etc, the sort of systems that wouldn't support a high OC anyway. Good chips go into our normal OC systems and the other two pots are pretty self explanatory. That said, the vast majority of chips used in our "non-prestige" systems are unbinned OEM chips from normal stock because we sell many times more systems than we have the capability to bin for.