Craigslist Never Changes... Buying A USED Gaming PC In 2024

My best deal to this day was a system with an i7-4790k, 24GB of RAM, 500GB SSD, GTX 1050Ti with a 750W Gold rated Corsair PSU. I got the system for $100 back in 2017. It was a big gamble because I wasn't able to test it before buying it and the guy had no idea of the exact specs it had. He just said it was an i7 and had a 2GB graphics card. Ended up selling it for $500 less than two weeks later which let me pay rent that month.

Yes, it always amuses me how people seem to think "I paid $1000 for this in 92 BC, so it must still be worth $1000 today"!

Every time I come to this channel, Dawid hits me with a new and obscure description of noise and or connector... "18th century Canal Boat" was not a sound I thought I would relate to... but now after hearing that fan... yes. yes indeed, well done.

I bought my PC from marketplace. 500 dollars for a 10400f, 16gb of 3200mhz DDR4, 850watt super flower PSU, 512 GB Samsung 980 pro nvme, 480gb sata SSD by Kingston, and a 1080ti. No issues, very happy with the deal

I bought the non-wifi of that Gigabyte motherboard that came with a Ryzen 5 2600 for $70 Cdn total on Facebook Marketplace back in Sept. The bios was never updated so ended up updating it to the latest bios and still works pretty well on my budget build.

The die on that is so large because some 60 series 20 series cards towards the end are actually failed 70\80 series dies fused off.

Who is Craig? Why does he have a list?

The one thing I sort of figured out here is whole system has an airflow problem. There is only one fan pulling air in, and the two pushing out are pushing through a rad. So while the CPU temps are okay (they should be better with that thing on it), the rest of the board and the graphics card is basically choking on it's own vomit. One more fan at the back to pull heat out would likely help quite a bit to keep the gpu temps more in line. Also as someone else mentioned, if you didn't you may have wanted to do a bios update on the motherboard, and perhaps install the "correct" drivers from the USB and whatnot. That might also help out a bit. When you were playing with neither the CPU or GPU particularly working, it seemed like the system had just eaten it's tail. Weirdness.

Mobo needs a bios update for cpu to run properly. Then RyzenMaster to tune. Going with 3200MHz ram or higher would help as well. Front fan is doing nothing but recirculating hot case air and would be better moved to the rear for a negative pressure setup. You'll get higher FPS and better lows with a slight undervolt on that GPU.

When I was running Ryzen 2600X in a Gigabyte B450 board I had massive instabiility issues out of the box, took until a few BIOS updates were released before things would run at the proper speed. Might solve the CPU issues where it's refusing to boost. I've got a PC now with the B550 version of that board with a 5600X that's running at a good speed and perfectly stable so worth a try if you ever revisit it.

Have you tried updating the motherboard bios and retest?

I just finished a build in the exact same case. Rx 570 and Ryzen 3 3100. $25 tower cooler rather than the AIO. Cooling worked great with 3 intake fans in front and 1 exhaust at the back (plus the top fan position empty for passive exhaust). Got the case and a collection of 7 mismatched fans for $30. Didn't look too bad in the end with rgb fans to spiff it up a bit.

I think the airflow in that case is not good. Also it doesn't have a back fan?

You didn't mention it, but updating the bios and resetting the cmos may solve the non-boost issue.

man, inflation be hitting hard when even Mirco Center is changing their $100 first time customer discount on the Ender 3, up to $150, when it was $100 3 years ago...

I knew exactly what was up, literally went back to rewatch all the craigslist PC videos yesterday 😅

Not a craigs list deal but I did find a ASROCK Z97E-ITX/ac motherboard with a i7 4790S with a low profile cooler and 8GB of ram all included for just $112USD. It was just the motherboard, cooler, ram and cpu but still this thing actually surprises me a lot with how powerful it is. Added Intel AX210 wifi card, NVME M.2 2242 SSD, GTX 1070 a friend gave me, and it's actually an amazing little system.

The power usage difference between the two systems is quite crazy. In TLoU Craigslist used over 250W and the new one only 130W. It's not even full system power usage, but certainly gives you a good estimation about it. Power efficiency has certainly come a long way with AMD over the years.

"Luckily, the previous owner graced us with a clean Windows install..." When buying second hand, never trust the installed OS. Wipe the SSD/HD and re-install a fresh one.

My latest Craigslist deal. Full workstation system with an Asus c422 sage/10g mobo, Intel w-2255 (10c/20t), 64gb ecc ddr4, Quadro m6000 12gb, Corsair 1600w (!) power supply, and a whole smattering of ssds (totalling 4tb) and a dual Intel x550 10g card (to complement the dual x550 10g on the mobo...) for $500 USD. This Craigslist post sat around for weeks before I found it and immediately jumped on it. Oh, and it came with a NH-D15 and a lian li O11D fully filled with Noctua fans.