a PC world fans Adam here with Gordon and we get a lot of questions into our
show the full nerd you can send those same questions into the full nerd at PC
world comm and if we don't answer them on the show we might answer them in a
segment like this so one of the things we talk about a lot on the show is
buying a used versus new GPU but I I want to see is it really an option to
get a used CPU when is it a good option to get to you CPU and what kind of deals
can you expect out there I think the first question is you want address
should be address is risk yeah nobody wants to bet to buy use part had
anything be bad just be left holding a bag of sand right yeah I think in
general it's probably a pretty safe bet to buy a CPU huh oh come on use I mean
as far as reliability lasers can be bad CPUs tend to be very very Hardy
components in my experience it's pretty rare that they just give up the ghosts
assuming you're buying from a place like on eBay that you buy from a place they
basically a waste you know a thousand or ten thousand computers from your company
they take those computers break them down to their components and they sell
those components off because they know it's a better value for them to sell it
off so those people know what they're doing
also if you're looking at buy used from say eBay a big established company that
is selling five hundred or a hundred or two hundred of these they probably have
no problems like oh that one's bad send it back we'll give you another one hmm
so if you're buying from somebody's like I got one or I got three it's definitely
a little higher risk but even then it's probably not a bad idea if you get a
good deal yeah what kind of deals are you seeing now yeah now if Elena was
here she could advise us on this but there is actually fair deals on older
parts especially on Intel that's just way more Intel CPUs out there I was
looking at 12 core Xeon basically for 100
right it's an older ivory bridge part but $400 you're getting a 12 core ivory
bridge Zeon that probably sold for in excess of $1500 it was brand-new what's
in it can you still find the motherboards for it yeah and that's the
other thing because you never want to go oh this is a good deal buy it now
checked out and go oh I have to buy a Super Micro motherboard for $700 you
have to run this thing oops so you got to be careful make sure you can get a
motherboard that runs so you got to do a lot more research before you buy these
things but the good news is a lot of times these things just sit on eBay
waiting for somebody to buy them a nice I've watched CPUs I almost bought it it
was a high court count Xeon a few few years ago because I wanted to build a
system out of it but it just sat there for months and I just never ultimately
did it but you can do it there's really some good deals out there at high core
count Zeon's I was just checking thread Ripper not that great there aren't that
many AMD parts out there they're only into the second gen a third rippers so
people are not really blowing out those first gen parts and those first Jam
parts they were such a good price it's not like you're seeing he's good yeah
when you're seeing a $1300 CPU go down to $100 that's a pretty good deal the
other thing that there isn't a lot of really good deals are for fairly recent
CPUs go to you want a coffee Leakey ruin rise in 2000 a rise in 3000 if you find
a good deal yes but generally you know not the greatest deals around and also
it's for consumer CPU in general people selling them on eBay our consumers
looking to do their own upgrade and having to sell to you when you're
looking at commercial parts like Zeon's you got people they just they they get
paid to cart these servers off from a data center and then they sell the parts
got it go so that's why the deals better they just want to get rid of these
things they don't want them to sit around and do you think it's ultimately
safer to go towards a part like a Theon well only because you have vendors who
have 500 of them yeah you also sometimes will see will somebody go like hey I've
got a quad-core cable or I don't think companies will be
retiring coffee lake systems yet but if they did like you have a company that
says I got a thousand desktops I need to dump these things they pay that person
the e-waste to come take the computers they take the computers they sell that
coffee lake or kb lake if you want to go look for kb lake that was in a
commercial desktop it's conic right it's a commercial desktop that's in a company
it's just a kb lake it's gonna work fine in any motherboard that supports it and
that is actually a pretty good way to get a you know quad core cable a key if
you want it that way so you can do it that route but one thing I think we're
overlooking when you talk about getting a used CPU yeah is if you're going to
eBay to buy a CPU that's already been broken out as being sold to you that
person knows what it's going for they know what they can sell it for right
they know like I see somebody else selling the CPU for they're selling
their their CPU for $300 I'm gonna sell mine for 280 mm just there's not that
much wiggle room there okay the other way to look at is more local listings
Craigslist or Ebay for whole systems there's a lot of people selling whole
systems they don't know what the value is which is to your advantage
I depends on you what your morals are somebody's selling you you know their
kids ninety nine hundred cake because they don't want it in the system that's
good for you right but Maeda's actually I was looking just on Craigslist and I
found just a ton of really good deals whole systems and the nice thing about a
whole system is hey if this works I meet you at Starbucks with a monitor plug it
in turn on boots whatever I know yeah you know it works and it was a Haswell
box 4770k partage something I don't think it had a 16-6 TTI so somebody had
recently upgraded it was like $6.99 right wow that's a pretty good deal
you're getting a decent quad core high clock as well part you're getting a 16
60 TI part plus you're getting probably a you know a bunch of other junk around
it but you can pull those parts out sell those other parts give them away or
whatever but that is probably the cheapest way to
get it is a go local look what people are gonna sing especially the ones they
don't even know what's in there well sometimes you just go and like hey this
is you know what it is you know what the value is to get it yourself
depends on how much money you want to give them huh so there are I think it's
reasonable and again I do think I would probably feel a lot more scared about
buying a used car then I would about buying a used computer because computers
are generally fairly binary you know it's gonna work forever and it's just
gonna not work one day and most computers work forever if they've never
been heavily overclocked right true so it's not as risky I think as buying a
used car it's just knowing those good deals and I will say the people who go
to ebay and say hey I'm gonna buy a 3900 X on ebay cuz I can't buy it at Micro
Center why you're paying $700 for that for a CPU that's $500 that makes no
sense so just because it's on ebay doesn't
mean it's a deal folks to remember that gotta pay attention toward actual prices
are well I'm curious to see what what everyone out there thinks when would you
buy something used and maybe even tell some of your the best deals
oh yeah sound right they're like bragging about the good deals the good
deals the good deals that was the good days so and yeah if you have a question
you can tune in to the full nerd or you can email us at the full nerd at PC
worldcom if we don't answer it on the show maybe we'll answer it in a segment
like this so thank you for taking the time to answer the questions Gordon and
we will talk to you later