Flipping PC's

[Dean560]

hi there i am from the netherlands so sorry if my English is not that great.

i  am also new around here so please let me know if i do something wrong that way i can correct myself in the future

 

i was planning on doing used pc builds but im really bad at knowing what each part is worth 

 

i also want to flip those builds for around €100 profit wich is around $110 i think

 

so what should i pay for this list for example:

i5 2400

r9 280x 3gb 

lga 1155 board doesn't matter what brand

8 GB of ram 

 

 

i would like to know the price for each individual component

 

thanks 

 

 

 

[minibois]

You should probably just check what these sorts of parts are going for on Tweakers.net, Marktplaats and possibly local Facebook groups and base it on that.

For example, these sorts of parts go for these sorts of prices on those places:

- i5 2400: 60 euros

- R9 280x: 70-80 euros

- LGA 1155: 50-60 euros for the basic (B and H) boards, (lot) more for the higher end Z series boards.

- 8GB of DDR3 RAM is about 25-30 euros second hand nowadays.

 

But prices are always dictated by your own market, which could be always changing. Plus you are also competing against new components, e.g. a Ryzen 2200G for 100 euros now competes with the i5 2400. But for some reason, people are glad to still pay a lot for LGA 1155 boards.

The GPU is also independent of the rest of the system, while motherboard and CPU for example are more closely connected. That makes it - for a potential buyer - easier to compare a second hand 280X to a new RX 560.

[Dean560]

thanks for your quick response 

 

i will look into it

[aisle9]

52 minutes ago, Dean560 said:

hi there i am from the netherlands so sorry if my English is not that great.

i  am also new around here so please let me know if i do something wrong that way i can correct myself in the future

 

i was planning on doing used pc builds but im really bad at knowing what each part is worth 

 

i also want to flip those builds for around €100 profit wich is around $110 i think

 

so what should i pay for this list for example:

i5 2400

r9 280x 3gb 

lga 1155 board doesn't matter what brand

8 GB of ram 

I can't give you exact prices because I'm not in the Netherlands, but I can tell you that turning a $110 profit on hardware that old is going to take some doing. I wouldn't be able to sell something like that for more than $300 in the States. Making the $110 in profit is doable, but I'd have to do something like buy an Optiplex 790 and put it in a new case. If you're using old Optiplex parts, a saavy buyer will figure it out instantly and offer less. If I were to go that route, I'd look to pay $60 tops for the Opti. Then I'd have to find that GPU, and I could probably get my hands on a 280X or something like it for $60-70 locally. 8GB of DDR3 can be had for $20 these days if you're willing to go with 4x2GB sticks instead of 2x4GB. You'd also need a power supply, and those cost about $30-40 new for a halfway decent one. Don't forget storage--a 500GB HDD can be had for $15 or a 1TB for $30 (used, of course), but you're going to take a hit on price when a buyer comes back and says, "Well, I'll have to pay $40 for an SSD."

 

So with some perseverance and a lot of luck on getting the prices you want, you're looking at $190 or so for the system you want to flip. If you want to just get the parts in place now, it's going to probably be more like $230 for all that. If you add a 120GB SSD to increase the item's appeal, $250. You'd then list it for $325 and hold out for an offer of $300, which might take a while for a system that age. These are all US prices and my experience in the US market--maybe people will still pay $500 for a Sandy Bridge gaming build up there.

 

I'm not trying to dissuade you from doing it. I make some really nice money on the side by flipping PCs, but I pick my purchases carefully. I just nabbed an RX 570 for free because the owner was convinced it was completely broken. One VBIOS flash later and it's perfect. The previous owner neglected to mention that he'd mined on it and had a mining BIOS that didn't like driver updates on there. I got my hands on a Lenovo i5-750 prebuilt in freakishly good condition for $2 a week ago because it had a BIOS password, and the owner didn't know how to clear it. One CMOS jumper later, the password was cleared. I'm going to make a killing on those two items, which is good news because I was taken to the cleaners a couple weeks ago by a guy who sold me a 2400G that he knew didn't work, then immediately blocked me.

 

If you just want to buy parts and slap them together, you're not going to make any money flipping PCs. You're going to watch them sit and end up selling them at cost or below just to get rid of them. If you're content to stockpile parts that you find a great deal on then build and sell a PC when you have the parts for it and the market is going to work in your favor, you'll sit on parts for a while before making a lot more money down the line. I rarely sell a desktop at anything less than double what it cost me to build/refurbish it, but it might take me months of sitting on it to get there.

 

/soapbox