What is the difference between OEM and Retail?

If your asking about cpu's, oem is supplied as chip only, (no heatsink fan) and 1 year warranty, retail has full 3 year warranty and is supplied with a heatsink and fan.
 
Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and retail

oem tend to be bundled when you buy something, like windows with a new pc

retail is off the shelf in a shop type stuff


Oem for things like dvd writers and the like means you get just the drive and no extra's
unlike a retail boxed dvd writer which would have a box , cable manual etc

I can imagine someone will explain this better.. but theres my 2 cents..
 
It will come as just a bare drive in a plain box, all the cables youll need will be supplied with your motherboard (sata data cable), sata power cable will be on your psu.
 
I can understand people asking about more in detail stuff and want a better understanding.. but an abbreviation which is a 10 second google is a bit much! :P
 
Must say i don't mind buying OEM stuff but CPU's i like to buy retail, I know it sounds daft but in the back of my mind i'm thinking how easy it is for sellers to cherry pick the good ones.
 
The issue of OEM vs Retail operating systems is a different kettle of fish. With a retail purchase you can install as many times as you want, and transfer it to as many different PCs as you want. Obviously you can only have it "live" on one PC at time. With OEM the licence is valid for use on one PC only, not transferable and is effectively tied to the motherboard - you change the motherboard and effectively the licence officially assumes you have a different PC - then you won't be able to activate it. Officially :)

See the Microsoft licencing sticky on the Windows software forum for more.
 
Often though with an OEM, microsoft are partially understanding. You should be able to phone them and tell them that you've had to buy a new motherboard because the old one broke, and they'll give you the activation key.

I've seen some OEM licences say "you've got a new PC and thus need to re-activate" because i added some RAM...
 
SMAndy said:
Often though with an OEM, microsoft are partially understanding. You should be able to phone them and tell them that you've had to buy a new motherboard because the old one broke, and they'll give you the activation key.
Click to expand...

The key point here is "should be able to". If you're lucky, the microsoft bloke will believe you and give you a fresh activation key. All too often, however, they simply say that a fresh purchase is needed.

SMAndy said:
I've seen some OEM licences say "you've got a new PC and thus need to re-activate" because i added some RAM...
Click to expand...

Microsofts OEM licence agreement works on a points system (actually, the software works on a points system but you get my drift). Changing a HDD, CPU or memory should not require re-activation. A mobo normally requires a reactivation. This is because a single mobo has numerous sub-parts that (for example, HDD controller chip, ethernet chip, etc etc). So a single mobo change = many points = re-activation
 
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