Going Used

AndreBex · June 18, 2016

So I found what I think is a little gem. But when buying secondhand items, their may be drawbacks. Is there any obvious way to tell if the system has been used for cryptocurrency mining?

Anyway, I found a older gaming system being sold here in Sweden, here are the specs:

CPU: Core i7 950 @3,06GHz

CPU Cooler: Corsair cooling hydro H70 (Is there any downsides to on old liquid cooled machine?)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5

RAM: 8GB DDR3 (Right now I have no more specifications of the brand or speed, I am going to assume 660Mhz. Would I need to upgrade the RAM if that is the case?)

GPU: XFX Radeon HD6990 4GB

Case: Fractal Design (not sure what case, because this is the only thing I have here, though he did say it was a case optimized for overclocking).

HDD: Samsung 1TB SATA-2 (Is this bad? I have a 320GB Seagate Barracuda I could use otherwise)

PSU: Corsair AX850W

So all of this for the mere price of 312 USD (Converted to make it easier for most).

From my knowledge and what I know this seems like a really good for the price, and with the 850W PSU I could even pick up a second HD6990 for cheap and run it in crossfire right? Would that make a good system for a little over 400 dollars?

Thanks for any help!

Electronics Wizardy · June 18, 2016

Looks fine

Ran is probably 1333mhz.

Hdd is fine, don't worry about an upgrade.

I would get a second 6990. Get a newer gpu like a 290x if you want to upgrade, or get a faster cpu like a x5660.

AndreBex · June 18, 2016

4 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Verify the components first hand, and that its working.

Otherwise, no bueno

So if I can see that the system boots it's good? No way to be sure if it was mined on right? Just rolling the dice on second hand systems. I can always ask, but the answer will probably be no.

If I go ahead and I see that the system works fine, what would be my path of upgrade? Literally all of the hardware is old, but where to start? SSD? Motherboard/CPU/RAM? GPU? Considering the Case being from Fractal and the PSU being, albeit super overkill they are fine right.