Would you ever buy a gaming PC off of Craigslist?

[mmntech]

Holy shit balls!? 2K and 3K for a FX 8350 based machines with Radeon 6870 and 7950 GPUs!? What the fvck are people smoking in Athens Georgia?

No kidding. Lets dissect this one.
https://athensga.craigslist.org/sys/4011146392.html

Asus Sabertooth 990FX $162
AMD FX-8350 $200
Asus branded Radeon HD 7950 $300
Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR3-1600 $129
WD Black 750GB HDD $100
Asus Black BD drive $59
Rosewill Tachyon 750W PSU $180
Cooler Master Cosmos II $350
Windows 7 Ultimate $190

Grand total $1670

Identical components bought brand new. All from Newegg. Since he's using a Rosewill PSU, I assume he bought the parts from them as well. Of course I could shave it down a lot more. Say...

Coolermaster CM Storm for $150
The legendary PC Power and Cooling Silencer (Mk III, 750w) $130
Ditch the BD drive. Asus DVD burner $20
Go with Windows 7 pro, unless you really need drive encryption. $130
1TB WB Black, it's cheaper for some reason. $90
And 120GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD. Didn't check reviews, but price and speeds are right. $109
Since GPUs are six and half a dozen of each other aside from the cooler, lets go with the Sapphire HD 7950 at $220

New grand total of $1340.

To ask $3000 for a gaming PC that doesn't even have an SSD is obscene and grounds for immediate revocation of one's gamer card. The dude's trying to make $1330 in profit on a computer he admits is a year old, and I can still do better by making smarter choices with the components. Hell, you can ever buy a similarly equipped Alienware for less.

My long winded point being, DIY or buy new from a reputable shop. Craigslist is a hive for scammers looking to make a profit off those who don't know how much this stuff costs.

 

[TridenT]

Nope.

Most guys want the prices everyone here was quoting. If I don't have a good way to testing whether or not it works then I don't want to bother.

 

[Soundmanred]

You might consider this monster:
http://tulsa.craigslist.org/sys/4026308452.html
It might be worth the shipping cost from Tulsa...

 

[Aikouka]

1TB WB Black, it's cheaper for some reason. $90

That's because the owner was an idiot and bought a RE3 drive for his normal, desktop computer. The RE3 drives are pretty much Caviar Blacks for enterprise solutions, and they command the enterprise price points.

You might consider this monster:
http://tulsa.craigslist.org/sys/4026308452.html
It might be worth the shipping cost from Tulsa...

That's just a Cooler Master case.

 

[SithSolo1]

You might consider this monster:
http://tulsa.craigslist.org/sys/4026308452.html
It might be worth the shipping cost from Tulsa...

You know, that wouldn't be a half bad retro rig for older games...

 

[aigomorla]

i would only buy the game if the seller can guarentee the key condition.

meaning its not activated or used on steam.

 

[Bateluer]

You might consider this monster:
http://tulsa.craigslist.org/sys/4026308452.html
It might be worth the shipping cost from Tulsa...

10 years old, Pentium 4. Its not worth the cost of electricity to run it for a month. With a system that old, its better to just DBAN the drives and drop it off at Goodwill or to metal scrappers for whatever they'll give you.

 

[OCNewbie]

Isn't AT kind of the wrong place to ask this question? Aren't a lot of us the type that build their own PC's?

 

[borderdeal]

You have to keep looking at craigslist on a daily basis but you can get pretty good deals.

My 2 machines I bought from craiglists:
1 Intel 17 920
Gigabyte Mobo
6 GB ram
1000 Watt PS
DVD-RW
Full tower case
Nvidia Geforce 470 video card
1 TB hdd
No mouse or KB ( I would not buy a used KB or mouse)
Paid $360 over 3 years ago (it would have cost over $1k to build it)

Second PC bought almost 2 years ago
Intel i5 2500k
8 gigs ram
DVD-RW
Asus P8P67 Pro Rev B3
Fatality creative PCIe sound card
Crappy 128 MB vid card
Mid tower case
Corsair H50 water cooler
700 watt PS
750 gig WD black
Paid $380 for it all

I had my Raven full tower case and a Full modular X4 750 Watt PS so I sold the Case, Sound card, tower and DVD-RW (the tower was a nice Corsair one which retailed about $80 The PS was a Corsair 700 watt too not a crappy one. I had my own DVD-rw and another 8 GB of ram. I sold the parts for $180 so I ended up paying $200 for the mobo, cpu, 8 GB ram and the H50 cooler Could not have touched that if bought new. By the way that is my current system and I do not plan to upgrade for another 2 years at least

Recently I bought 2 Radeon HD 7870 with Artic cooler 250 watt coolers for $280 and flipped them for $180 each ( I was going to use them but got a Gigabyte 7970 GHz edition for $256 from Amazon Warehouse and I prefer single cards and it runs everything great)

So it can get you really great deals if you check it daily but yes most stuff selling there is way overpriced.

 

[mmntech]

That's because the owner was an idiot and bought a RE3 drive for his normal, desktop computer. The RE3 drives are pretty much Caviar Blacks for enterprise solutions, and they command the enterprise price points.

He did that but neglected to put an SSD into a circa 2012 gaming PC. AHH, AHHHHH. My nerd brain just exploded at this sheer stupidity. D:

 

[Bateluer]

No kidding. Lets dissect this one.
https://athensga.craigslist.org/sys/4011146392.html

Asus Sabertooth 990FX $162
AMD FX-8350 $200
Asus branded Radeon HD 7950 $300
Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR3-1600 $129
WD Black 750GB HDD $100
Asus Black BD drive $59
Rosewill Tachyon 750W PSU $180
Cooler Master Cosmos II $350
Windows 7 Ultimate $190

Grand total $1670

Identical components bought brand new. All from Newegg. Since he's using a Rosewill PSU, I assume he bought the parts from them as well. Of course I could shave it down a lot more. Say...

Coolermaster CM Storm for $150
The legendary PC Power and Cooling Silencer (Mk III, 750w) $130
Ditch the BD drive. Asus DVD burner $20
Go with Windows 7 pro, unless you really need drive encryption. $130
1TB WB Black, it's cheaper for some reason. $90
And 120GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD. Didn't check reviews, but price and speeds are right. $109
Since GPUs are six and half a dozen of each other aside from the cooler, lets go with the Sapphire HD 7950 at $220

New grand total of $1340.

To ask $3000 for a gaming PC that doesn't even have an SSD is obscene and grounds for immediate revocation of one's gamer card. The dude's trying to make $1330 in profit on a computer he admits is a year old, and I can still do better by making smarter choices with the components. Hell, you can ever buy a similarly equipped Alienware for less.

My long winded point being, DIY or buy new from a reputable shop. Craigslist is a hive for scammers looking to make a profit off those who don't know how much this stuff costs.

That guy needs to be slapped. Anyone read his intro paragraph?

I built this thing from scratch as a means to teach myself how to build gaming computers. I plan on selling this one and use the money I will make from selling this to build another gaming PC to sell and to use the left over money to pay off some student loans of mine. The best way to save money when getting gaming PCs is to BUILD YOUR OWN RIG...but if you want a pre-built PC getting pre-built PCs from gamers like me is the best way to go or you'll find yourself paying 10k easily for a PC that can only do a fraction of what THIS one can do for only 3K.

Note: I'm willing to drop the price by 200.00 if you let me keep the HDD. Since the OS is OEM that means you'll have to purchase your own OS along with your own HDD if you go that route. But at least this way you'll successfully avoid any spyware/viruses that this PC will inevitably have due to being exposed to the internet. No such thing as absolute security anymore. Any PC tech can tell you that.

This guy is a complete dipshit.

 

[sze5003]

Yeah he even stated you can build your own for way cheaper. Seems like he failed there too and had no idea what he was doing. Figured I'll buy all these components no matter how much it will cost me and sell it to an idiot using Craigslist.

OP you should contact him with a newegg shopping cart you piece together and explain to him why the price is not making sense.

 

[OCNewbie]

OP you should contact him with a newegg shopping cart you piece together and explain to him why the price is not making sense.

I'm sure he's the reasonable type that would respond giving thanks for the information.

 

[Bateluer]

Yeah he even stated you can build your own for way cheaper. Seems like he failed there too and had no idea what he was doing. Figured I'll buy all these components no matter how much it will cost me and sell it to an idiot using Craigslist.

OP you should contact him with a newegg shopping cart you piece together and explain to him why the price is not making sense.

Even at launch, those parts didn't cost even half that.

 

[sze5003]

I'm sure he's the reasonable type that would respond giving thanks for the information.

Some people get offensive when you prove them wrong or try to bargain with reason. They believe their item is worth what they think no matter what.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thanks for the feedback. Interesting that the prices are so high in Athens, GA. In Boston, MA, it seems like most of the gaming rigs are selling for less than they would cost to build out of parts. Some people list moving as a reason, getting out of gaming, basically, they are willing to take a loss on the parts to get rid of it and get some of their money back. Which is kinda bad, if you're a seller, looking for cheap parts to put together a rig to sell (out of new / mostly-new parts) and attempt to make a profit on. Let me see if I can dig up the gems from a few nights ago to show you all.

http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/sys/4015309468.html
http://boston.craigslist.org/nwb/sys/4041037579.html
http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/sys/4016935433.html
http://boston.craigslist.org/nos/sys/4023327685.html

This one seems like a fair deal:
http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/sys/4040110718.html

This one has both peltiers and watercooling. Crazy! (Someone tell Aigo about sub-ambient watercooling, I'm curious what he thinks about this one.)
http://boston.craigslist.org/nos/sys/3977699191.html

3820, GTX680, 1000W PSU, and liquid cooling, for $1200
http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/sys/4023131639.html

There was one I saw a few nights ago, that had an i5-750, and a halfway-decent older GPU, for $180, that seemed like a steal.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Anyways, I didn't say in my OP, but I'm more interested in selling, rather than buying.

Does anyone have any pointers for me? Should I get myself a cheap pre-paid "Craigslist phone", so I don't have to give out my real phone number?

I've got some more parts on the way, but I've built a budget gaming rig out of these parts:
Intel G1610 IB dual-core 2.6Ghz Celeron
Biostar H61 board w/HDMI out
Xion Solaris case (kinda flashy, has glowing green LEDs behind the front bezel)
Enermax NAXN 350W PSU
8GB DDR3-1600 kit (2x4GB)
30GB OCZ Agility SSD
9600GSO 384MB GDDR3 (96 CUDA core version, the original better one)

I have some 7790s and a 7750 on order. Also some 3TB HDDs, which will allow me to part out my server, which contains five 1TB HDDs.

I'm not asking for an estimated price for my gear (probably sell it for $500 without Windows), but curious, do you think any PC gamers would go for that?

Edit: The $500 figure was with the 7790 and an additional 1TB HDD. As currently configured, I would probably only ask $350.

 

[Aikouka]

(probably sell it for $500 without Windows)

I really don't think that's worth $500....

do you think any PC gamers would go for that?

Probably not.

 

[Soundmanred]

I really don't think that's worth $500....



Probably not.

Agreed.
But now we're in price check territory, which is a no-no.

 

[OCNewbie]

Some people get offensive when you prove them wrong or try to bargain with reason. They believe their item is worth what they think no matter what.

Yeah, I was being sarcastic

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

You might consider this monster:
http://tulsa.craigslist.org/sys/4026308452.html
It might be worth the shipping cost from Tulsa...

Downright beautiful case (I still have and use a silver and a black Praetorian).
Liked it so much that I bought a silver and a black Silverstone Temjin TJ09 last year (probably were the last two new ones in the US).

10 years old, Pentium 4. Its not worth the cost of electricity to run it for a month. With a system that old, its better to just DBAN the drives and drop it off at Goodwill or to metal scrappers for whatever they'll give you.

NOES!111!!! Give me the case at least!