With prices and ensh!tification of everything, how many of you are buying old hardware?

Mechz said:

Refurbishers on eBay usually stock plenty of PCs and laptops that are only a few generations old for one tenth of the new prices.

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The problem for me is that I just don't trust sellers on e-bay

hsehestedt said:

The problem for me is that I just don't trust sellers on e-bay

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Times have changed. The buyer on E-Bay has more protection than the seller these days.

hsehestedt said:

The problem for me is that I just don't trust sellers on e-bay

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eBay sellers have all the good hook ups to ex government and ex corp machines at great prices. It's easy to find the reputable sellers too.

Mechz said:

eBay sellers have all the good hook ups to ex government and ex corp machines at great prices. It's easy to find the reputable sellers too.

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You can bypass the eBay sellers by using sites like GovDeals in the US. They typically have devices from educational and government entities. I’m sure there are others in the US, and probably a similar thing in other countries.

I went through my old parts closet (cast-offs from upgrades when it was still affordable to keep current) and put together a mostly-complete Ryzen 1700 system on a B350 microATX motherboard. I had an older 256GB NVME and 1TB SATA SSD, but only 8GB DDR4-2600 memory to put in it with an RX480 GPU. That worked out pretty well though, so I looked for a used RX 5700 XT on marketplace which runs great and plays CyberPunk at 1080p smoothly on very high settings (no raytracing of course).

But 8GB just wasn't enough and I kinda hoped I could get more clocks out of the memory. So I found an affordable 16GB 3600 kit at Microcenter for a decent price and put that in. I was very surprised when it came right up at 3200 speed with no hesitation, then pushed it a little to 3400. If you remember, Zen1 back in the day was barely capable of 2600 speeds and 3200 took a lot of careful tweaking to get and generally only with B-die chips. AGESA and memory updates over the years have improved memory compatibility a lot.

And my last upgrade I found a used Ryzen 1800X for $20 on marketplace. Put it in and overclocked that to 4.0Ghz (the 1700 could only do 3800Ghz stable). The 1800x could do 4.1Ghz but the motherboard VRM just won't cooperate with stable voltage under load.

So, now I have a pretty darn good system put together for chicken feed. I'd have no concerns pairing it with a more modern GPU for gaming at 1440p or 4k, but not interested in that expense. There's a couple of take-aways here: do upgrades for friends then keep all your pulled parts in a safe place and look carefully for used parts on marketplace or ebay. But I admit, it can be risky.

Yup, I've only bought new business laptops for the past 20 years and I'll hold on to a laptop for as long as possible. I held on to a HP nc6400 for about 13 years although it ended it's days as a Linux laptop, so I've made sure I've got my money's worth in the past.

Right now I don't need anything new or used, but a spare laptop to tool around Windows 11, I wouldn't mind if a good deal came through. I will need a Windows 11 compatible computer, though... I'm not gonna mess around with unsupported hardware and all that.

pseymour said:

You can bypass the eBay sellers by using sites like GovDeals in the US. They typically have devices from educational and government entities. I’m sure there are others in the US, and probably a similar thing in other countries.

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Located here for those interested...



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glasskuter said:

I probably bought 200+ used ones over the years.....for me, family, friends and resale. Mostly PCs but some laptops. I always concentrated on off-lease business grade systems. I never purchased consumer grade devices.

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Where do you go to buy?

I updated all my hardware in the spring of 2025, so I won't be needing any updates for a spell. I'll live with what I have for the foreseeable future.

cheaterslick said:

Where do you go to buy?

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Every one of them came from a handful of Ebay sellers who had connections to purchase thousands of such off-lease machines and who had built a great re-seller reputation on Ebay. Those sellers were the only ones I then bought mine from. In 2022-2024 I was getting complete guaranteed Window 11 compatible Optiplexes for around $150 each including shipping. Most came with a clean install of 11 Pro already done.

Of course, now that silicon and shipping costs what it does, the Ebay market sky-rocketed accordingly as well, so bargains are fewer and farther between now, but I had to stop due to my health, anyway.

glasskuter said:

Every one of them came from a handful of Ebay sellers who had connections to purchase thousands of such off-lease machines and who had built a great re-seller reputation on Ebay.

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This is a thing. There are sellers on Ebay that will bend over backwards to keep you pleased because they greatly value their online reputation as a trustworthy business. Always check the rating of the seller before you buy and try to see if they show how long they've been around. In Canada you can return a product simply because you changed your mind or you just don't like it (within a reasonable amount of time, of course). This puts the seller at a tremendous risk so scammers on Ebay are not nearly as common as they once were. Suffice to say refunds are always a hassle and nobody wants to jump through those hoops. Background checks are not an optional thing when you purchase used online.

A thought has recently occurred to me about buying new. ASUS and other companies have gotten into a lot of trouble selling defective merchandise and often neglect to honour their warranties even though the product was purchased brand new. Buying new these days does not have the clout it once did it would seem. So even if you do buy new there's no guarantee that the big name company you purchased from will honour their assurances. At least with used you have that "tried and tested" value and if the Fat Cats continue to fail to stand behind their products perhaps used is really the wiser of the two choices after all.

I hadn't looked in several years so I did a quick check with no shopping around or checking for best price. I probably could have found cheaper. I just clicked the first one I saw from a seller I had dealt with before and equipped like I would want if I was buying today..

On Ebay Dell Optiplex SFF 10th gen i5, 32gb ram, 1 tb M.2 drive. Windowss Pro already installed. $535

Then I went to Dell and priced a new Pro Plus series SFF (the Optiplex line has now been re-named to Pro Plus)with Intel Core Ultra 5, 32gb ram. 1tb M.2 $3,353

$3000 difference. UHH... If I needed to upgrade, it would be a no-brainer to buy used until today's crazy prices came down. I'm not too proud to use gen 4 and ddr4. I be poor.

glasskuter said:

I hadn't looked in several years so I did a quick check with no shopping around or checking for best price. I probably could have found cheaper. I just clicked the first one I saw from a seller I had dealt with before and equipped like I would want if I was buying today..

On Ebay Dell Optiplex SFF 10th gen i5, 32gb ram, 1 tb M.2 drive. Windowss Pro already installed. $535

Then I went to Dell and priced a new Pro Plus series SFF (the Optiplex line has now been re-named to Pro Plus)with Intel Core Ultra 5, 32gb ram. 1tb M.2 $3,3553

$3000 difference. UHH... If I needed to upgrade, it would be a no-brainer to buy used until today's crazy prices came down. I'm not too proud to use gen 4 and ddr4. I be poor.

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IMO DDR5 System RAM is over rated anyway. One would have to be doing some serious rendering or moving huge swathes of data to justify today's DDR5 prices. My little N95 OTVOC uses DDR5 and it gets obvious that they used it to lean on some of the shortcomings that come with that Intel chip because the bottleneck is there every time I push the envelope. The same goes for the high gen NVMe. Unless you have the platform it isn't worth paying the extra bux to get.

Bought a few bits of older hardware recently, z590 motherboard, i9 11900k, 32gb ddr4, a 4tb hdd, i9 10850k, b560 motherboard plus 32bg ddr4, decent machines with ok power, supports all the latest tech as well. Also got a few Noctua coolers with fans.