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Prelude My best friend of nearly 30 years is in dire need of a new PC. He was recently married so he and his wife are saving up for a home. My buddy is not a PC gamer at all, I kinda force it upon him... so his PC's have been 100% supplied by me for nearly the past decade. As a console gamer, he usually gets last dibs on PC component hand-me-downs; that was until COVID-19 hit and we started playing WWZ together online. Modern games run on his PC at relatively playable performance (lowest settings of course) but it's really rough, at best. So I'd like to gift him a relatively modern gaming PC, but without spending (much) of my own money. Which leads us to... The Zero Budget Build Challenge I am NOT allowed to spend even 1¢ of my own money directly on components for this build. I am allowed to trade used PC components & accessories for parts needed in this build. I am allowed to hand-me-down used PC components from my personal PCs to harvest parts for this build. I am allowed to incur expenses from purchasing hardware for my personal builds and traveling costs for trades. I am allowed to sell or trade components harvested from my buddy's current system. I am allowed to spend money from harvested components (above) to purchase parts for this build. I'll be updating the OP as I go along so you don't need to read the entire thread to find its current progress: Day 0 His current "gaming" PC is a mish-mash of my hand-me-downs from over the years. So this is the benchmark to beat, and the bar is pretty low. CPU: Intel Core i5-750 2.66 GHz 4c/8t (Lynnfield) CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler Motherboard: MSI P55-CD53 ATX LGA1156 Motherboard Memory: 8GB (4 x 2 GB) Kingston KVR DDR3-1333 DDR3-1333 CL7 Memory Storage: 1TB Seagate Momentus XT SSHD Video Card: XFX Radeon R7 360 2 GB Core Edition Video Card Case: NZXT H230 ATX Mid Tower Case Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply Optical: Lite-On DVD\CD Drive Other: USB 3.0 Internal PCIe AIC I don't presently have interior shots of his current dinosaur rig, but I have an exterior shot of when it was originally (re)built around 2013: Day 1 So right away I looked at the CPU and knew that Lynnfield relic would be a problem, especially at 1080P (his monitor's resolution). Browsed OfferUp and briefly considered making a trade offer for an Intel Core i7-870 listed for $15. Of course, even that would choke the GPU I had in mind for this build, so I aimed a little higher. Haswell prices are still way too high and I knew that would hurt my chances at making a trade with my relatively worthless stuff, so Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge would have to do. Minutes later, I fired off a trade offer for an Intel Core i7-3770 (non-K) and H61 motherboard combo in exchange for an old GTX 750 Ti that was sitting in a drawer. Seller accepted! Considering a used GTX 750 Ti goes for $40-70 USD, and the i7-3770 is closer to $70-90, I definitely traded up. Yeah boyos, that's a PCI slot. The dust was included at no charge. Also RIP USB 3.0... no headers for it, but not really important. Drove there and back (1+ hours in LA traffic), got her home, dusted her off, and hooked her up to a spare Corsair CX500 (to be traded later) and it booted right up. Was pleasantly surprised to be greeted with a familiar UEFI considering how dated the rest of this board's components are. As of now, the Zero Budget Build specs: CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge) CPU Cooler: Intel Stock Cooler / TBD Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155 Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) Kingston DDR3-1333 Low profile Storage: TBD Video Card: TBD Case: TBD Power Supply: TBD Optical: TBD Day 2 While we like the elegant minimalism of the NZXT H230, modern designs with mesh front panels are objectively better for thermals. Having struggled with thermals with the H230 when it was my father's case, I started the hunt for mATX mini-tower or ATX mid-tower case on OfferUp. The only requirements were: A. Mesh front panel that supported 2x 120mm (or larger) intake fans. B. Support for at least one 5.25" optical bay (friend uses the CD\DVD drive). C. Support for modern cable management features D. Support for mATX. There were virtually zero cases on OfferUp that checked all these requirements... until by some miracle, there was actually someone selling/trading a brand new Cougar MX330-G case. I pinged him an offer to trade for my spare Corsair CX500 or my spare EVGA 700B power supply, and he accepted the CX500. The trader was local, so I was there and back within 20 minutes! My buddy's current PC (the i5-750 rig) is not at my house, so with a new case a good chunk of the core components, I'm now able to begin a substantial portion of his build without harvesting any components from his current PC. Since we traded the Corsair CX500, the spare EVGA 700B will be his new-ish PSU. Tossed in some spare 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1333 low profile memory, a stock Intel cooler (from my i7-6700), spare Fractal Design 120mm fans, and my spare Asus PCE-AC68 WiFi NIC, then we were basically ready to rock. As of Day 2, the Zero Budget Build specs. CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge) CPU Cooler: Intel Stock Cooler / TBD Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155 Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) Kingston DDR3-1333 Low profile Storage: TBD Video Card: TBD Case: Cougar MX330-G Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze Optical: TBD Day 3 My buddy dropped off his current/old computer so I could begin backing up / cloning his drives. I also needed to harvest some parts from this thing, such as the 2x 120mm Antec fans, the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, and the LG DVD/CD RW drive. Next I formatted his new OS drive, which was my OCZ TR150 480GB SATA SSD that I no longer needed due to getting a 2TB WD Blue SATA SSD this past July: The cloning source was his current/old 1TB Seagate Momentus XT. Had to shrink the partition down enough so it would fit the OCZ TR150, and it was quite a learning experience: it took up all of day 3. Basically uninstalled some old games, defragged the drive, disabled system restore and paging, which finally would allow me to shrink the partition down to 460GB. Defragging took most of the evening, so I let that run through the night. As of Day 3, the Zero Budget Build specs. CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge) CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155 Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) Kingston DDR3-1333 Low profile Storage: OCZ TR150 SATA SSD 480GB Storage: Seagate Momentus XT SATA SSHD 1TB Video Card: TBD Case: Cougar MX330-G Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze Optical: LG DVD/CD RW Drive Day 4 Cloned the Seagate drive first thing in the morning, then migrated the OCZ SSD to the Zero Budget build along with the Hyper 212 EVO (fricken annoying installation). Greeted with no video / no POST. WTF. I had tested the i7-3770 and motherboard barely a few days ago! Installed my buzzer, tried again. No POST, no beeps. I removed the RAM, got the "RAM error" beep code as expected. Installed 1 stick of RAM, POSTed fine. Moved the 1 stick to slot 2: no POST and no beeps. Well shit. Looks like slot 2 got screwed somehow. Took a compressed air can and blew out DIMM slot 2, and still no POST, no beeps. No signs of corrosion or damage on the board. Figured there was no harm in checking the CPU, so I popped off the Hyper 212 and the CPU to get a good look at the LGA socket. Bingo. A dust bunny had somehow made its way into and behind the CPU. Mind blown. Socket cleaned out with air can. Reinstalled CPU, cooler, both RAM DIMMs. POSTed right up. And now for the crown jewel of the Zero Budget Build. Due to upgrading my sister's build, I re-inherited my old Asus GTX 1070 Ti Cerberus, which was a video card originally marketed toward internet cafe builders. While I was upgrading my sister, I grabbed a kit of 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600 from an old build she doesn't use anymore, and installed the Kingston low profile kit in exchange. Compared to his Radeon R7 360... The GTX 1070 Ti created a new problem since it blocked every single PCIe port, except the PCI port at the very bottom. So to retain WiFi on this machine, I had to put away my Asus PCE-AC-68U WiFi NIC and went to dig out a PCI WiFi NIC. The ketchup and mustard is strong... None of the colors make any sense. But that's what you get in a Zero Budget build! Booted up WWZ, maxed out its settings at 1080P and ran the benchmark. Killed it at 90 fps average. Dropped shadows to High instead of Ultra and the benchmark jumped to over 100fps average. Very pleased! Day 4 specs of the Zero Budget Build: CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge) CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155 Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600 Storage: OCZ TR150 SATA SSD 480GB Storage: Seagate Momentus XT SATA SSHD 1TB Video Card: Asus GTX 1070 Ti Cerberus Case: Cougar MX330-G Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze Optical: LG DVD/CD RW Drive Day 5 The Zero Budget build is going to my buddy this Sunday, December 6th, so I'm putting the finishing touches on things that have been annoying me, aesthetically. I designed and 3D printed an IO shield out of black PETG, and simply hot glued it to the top, bottom, and along the VGA out. I'm not much of an engineer so I don't really have the wit or time (takes 1 hour to print each prototype) to figure out how to design something that could just snap into place. The above IO shield didn't quite fit, so I edited the model a little bit and the 2nd one was nearly perfect. Next I gutted and stripped the motherboard down the barebones so that I could go after the blue plastics with some matte black acrylic paints. I want the theme to be the typical (pre-RGB) black/red gamer aesthetic. I was worried about bricking the board the entire time, but I was careful and slow. It's definitely a 10 footer, if you look at just the right angles you can find blue areas where my brush could not reach. IMO, it looks much better without the blue peeking through on the DIMM and 24-pin slots. I wish the 24-pin connector could be red instead, but white is fine. Day 6 I know I said that this was supposed to be delivered this past Sunday, but my entire family (kids and all) caught the flu. Even though we were relatively well by Sunday, we felt it was best to avoid potential spread by waiting another week. Our new pick-up date is December 19. This allowed me some extra time to sell of the old Radeon R7 360 and the old 8GB G.Skill DDR3-1333 to upgrade his memory. Found this 16GB (2x8GB) kit on ebay for $47 after tax, bought it, and it just arrived today. Just passed Memtest86 as I typed this post, so I'm just about ready to wrap this thing up and give it to him. I already have a buyer for the R7 360 2GB for $40 and I can probably flip the 8GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 kit for $30, which brings me back "under budget." If the RX 5700 XT ever gets added, I'll just reclaim the GTX 1070 Ti and sell it for a fat profit. Final Zero Budget build specs: CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge) CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155 Memory: 16GB (2x8GB) G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1866 CL10 Storage: OCZ TR150 SATA SSD 480GB Storage: Seagate Momentus XT SATA SSHD 1TB Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB Cerberus Case: Cougar MX330-G Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze Optical: LG DVD/CD RW Drive Day 7 Due to some major Windows issues or a potential virus, we were up til midnight reinstalling Win10 and his games. Ended up dropping in the 3060 then ran Superposition just so I could get home and into bed. The previous score was ~3800, and the new score: Current specs: CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.9 GHz 4c/8t (Ivy Bridge) CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO Motherboard: Asus P8H61-M LE/CSM R2.0 LGA1155 Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600 Storage: OCZ TR150 SATA SSD 480GB Storage: Seagate Momentus XT SATA SSHD 1TB Video Card: EVGA RTX 3060 XC 12GB Case: Cougar MX330-G Power Supply: EVGA 700B 80+ Bronze Optical: LG DVD/CD RW Drive

I have around 1800 to build my whole setup and I want a pc with a 1080 in it but building one is not an option with my budget. I found a used pc but it comes with alot. I want to know if it is a good deal and if not what pc could I build for 1200? Used pc setup - https://offerup.com/item/detail/270999254/?ref=Search

Hi, Where would be the best place to look for a used GTX 1070 (Preferably an EVGA FTW)? Thanks

I regularly buy PC parts used, build them into gaming PCs, and then sell them locally on these sites. I have sold around ten computers since quarantine started and besides general questions, none of these PCs have failed or had anything bad happen to them yet (knock on wood). But the more time that goes by and the more I sell, there is a higher and higher chance of something going wrong with one the sold systems. The question is am I obligated to provide support or refund if I didn't specifically mention it in the listing? I would assume that somewhere on the terms of service or something on these sites there should be something mentioning this situation that presumably sides with the seller, as I don't know the conditions/use that the PC was put under after it had been sold (may be dusty, pet hair, tinkered with by the buyer etc.) that may have caused the failure. Anyways hopefully someone with experience or knowledge of this kind of stuff can help me out here. TLDR is title lol