Help buying used and old parts for a budget pc

[Puffing]

I’ve been given a challenge by me buddy who wants a pc for 400 USD and what I’ve been told is that the way to go is the used market I would like some suggestions for what used PCs I should keep my eye out for and also I want to run buy the idea if this Xeon chip for gaming and productivity; https://www.newegg.com/p/2HE-000E-00498?item=9SIA68F8RY1781&source=region&nm_mc=knc-googlemkp-pc&cm_mmc=knc-googlemkp-pc-_-pla-tekboost-_-processors+-+server-_-9SIA68F8RY1781&gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=EAIaIQobChMInomM1pqm5QIVEdvACh2bCQu1EAUYBSABEgK_w_D_BwE 

i know this link doesn’t accurately represent what you can get the chip for in terms of price but it has good spec sheets... I’ve seen them used and refurbished for 50 dollars USD so yeah just ideas and suggestions for used market buying  

[KingTdiGGiTTy]

My budget desktop has a Thinkstation S30 motherboard in it, if you can get them for under $100 its a pretty decent deal and a Xeon E5-2680 is still a decent CPU, one thing to look out for with old OEM motherboard is that some revisions may support Ivy-Bridge CPUs others may only support the Sandy-Bridge CPUs. And buying two xeons instead of one will hurt price to performance. DDR3 ECC memory can be found for pretty cheap too.

 

MOBO example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Thinkstation-S30-Motherboard-System-Board-03T6734-LGA2011-0/264268047107?epid=1366285012&hash=item3d879a6303:g:ITkAAOSwFwFdbpdn:sc:USPSPriority!55350!US!-1

 

CPU ex.: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-E5-2680-SR0KH-8-Core-2-7GHz-LGA-2011-CPU-Processor-km/312797956086?epid=2121019134&hash=item48d43607f6:g:QIgAAOSwA25afg~~

 

Mem: https://www.ebay.com/itm/16GB-4x4GB-PC3-10600R-DDR3-1333MHz-2Rx4-Reg-ECC-Hynix-HMT151R7BFR4C-H9/372751581593?hash=item56c9b9c199:g:qP4AAOSwp~pdZvIC

[Puffing]

4 minutes ago, KingTdiGGiTTy said:

My budget desktop has a Thinkstation S30 motherboard in it, if you can get them for under $100 its a pretty decent deal and a Xeon E5-2680 is still a decent CPU, one thing to look out for with old OEM motherboard is that some revisions may support Ivy-Bridge CPUs others may only support the Sandy-Bridge CPUs. And buying two xeons instead of one will hurt price to performance. DDR3 ECC memory can be found for pretty cheap too.

 

MOBO example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Thinkstation-S30-Motherboard-System-Board-03T6734-LGA2011-0/264268047107?epid=1366285012&hash=item3d879a6303:g:ITkAAOSwFwFdbpdn:sc:USPSPriority!55350!US!-1

 

CPU ex.: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-E5-2680-SR0KH-8-Core-2-7GHz-LGA-2011-CPU-Processor-km/312797956086?epid=2121019134&hash=item48d43607f6:g:QIgAAOSwA25afg~~

 

Mem: https://www.ebay.com/itm/16GB-4x4GB-PC3-10600R-DDR3-1333MHz-2Rx4-Reg-ECC-Hynix-HMT151R7BFR4C-H9/372751581593?hash=item56c9b9c199:g:qP4AAOSwp~pdZvIC

Would Xeon be the way to go in this situation, it’s for a gamer/normal pc work would Xeon be good for this and is it worth getting a new chip?

[dizmo]

You should be checking Reddit and eBay. You'll get the most bang for the buck there.

For example, I just saw a 9600k, Z390, 16GB RAM, GTX 1050Ti, 256gb/2tb build go for $260.

 

I made my PC for $350 Canadian....which includes all peripherals, monitor and speakers.

[SPARTAN VI]

If you're on a shoe string budget, your best bang for buck will likely come from a computer surplus / liquidation store. They often have complete towers with Core i7 CPUs floating around the $100 USD mark. Then it's just a matter of pairing it with a suitable video card, and you're off to the races.

 

Case in point, this is one of the stores where Linus made a few purchases when he was in California for Scrapyard Wars:

 

Granted the power supply will likely need to be upgraded regardless, you could easily be under $400 USD all-in with one of these as your foundation.