Best time of the year to build a used-part PCs

[Andrei Chiffa]

I was wondering, for those of you with tight budgets and experience with building PCs from used parts, what is the best time of the year to assemble/buy a mid-tier gaming PC - around 500-600$ total.

[flibberdipper]

I would imagine around the release of a new GPU launch, because people are ditching their old cards for new stuff. Hell, get yourself a used Dell and throw like a 3770 in one + a better PSU and a used GPU and you'd end up with a baller sleeper/budget PC.

[iRileyx]

As mentioned above, when a new launch happens quite alot of people will sell off old hardware.

Also after christmas can be a good time, with people getting new parts for christmas and wanting to get some money back from their old ones.

[kaiju_wars]

New launches, but always keep an eye out.  You'll never know when you'll find a great deal.  

Like, no launches recently, but a couple weeks ago I got a complete PC.  AMD Phenom X4 9650, 8GB of RAM, MSI motherboard, hard drive, case, etc... for $20.

Sure, not the greatest CPU ever, but it can still handle some light gaming.

 

So yes you can wait till new launches come, but always keep an eye out.   You'll never know what you'll find.

[flibberdipper]

3 hours ago, kaiju_wars said:

AMD Phenom X4 9650, 8GB of RAM, MSI motherboard, hard drive, case, etc... for $20.

That's actually a really nice deal, depending on the board and HDD capacity. I would have grabbed it even if I didn't need it just because it's so cheap.

[kaiju_wars]

36 minutes ago, tmcclelland455 said:

That's actually a really nice deal, depending on the board and HDD capacity. I would have grabbed it even if I didn't need it just because it's so cheap.

Hell yeah it is.  But I only find deals like this because I'm always looking.  Never hurts to keep a causal eye on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist.

[Ithanul]

5 hours ago, tmcclelland455 said:

I would imagine around the release of a new GPU launch, because people are ditching their old cards for new stuff. Hell, get yourself a used Dell and throw like a 3770 in one + a better PSU and a used GPU and you'd end up with a baller sleeper/budget PC.

Agree, that what I do for some of my used hardware.

Also, just keep an eye out on sell boards, craigslist, etc. on occasions.  Sometimes deals pop up through out the year.

[flibberdipper]

34 minutes ago, Ithanul said:

Agree, that what I do for some of my used hardware.

Also, just keep an eye out on sell boards, craigslist, etc. on occasions.  Sometimes deals pop up through out the year.

I found a prebuilt HP on fleaBay with an i5 2400 for just shy of 100 bucks which seems like a pretty good deal, all things considered, but it's like 20 bucks more than my mom will be willing to throw down for my birthday (just getting her to go halfsies on an 80 dollar OptiPlex 7010 with a 3240 or 3220 is proving to be nearly impossible).

[Ithanul]

43 minutes ago, tmcclelland455 said:

I found a prebuilt HP on fleaBay with an i5 2400 for just shy of 100 bucks which seems like a pretty good deal, all things considered, but it's like 20 bucks more than my mom will be willing to throw down for my birthday (just getting her to go halfsies on an 80 dollar OptiPlex 7010 with a 3240 or 3220 is proving to be nearly impossible).

Best deal I ever nabbed was a X79 system for 300 bucks: 3930K, ASUS RIVBE, and 16GB GSkill Ripjaws.  Think I found that one last year.  Though, getting my hands on a Xeon for 120 bucks was not bad either then the X99 ITX board for 100 bucks.  Which reminds me, I need to lurk out for more X99 boards (I like to have backups considering how I abuse hardware).

[flibberdipper]

10 hours ago, Ithanul said:

ASUS RIVBE

ｍｏｉｓｔ

 

 

[Ithanul]

4 hours ago, tmcclelland455 said:

ｍｏｉｓｔ

 

 

Hehe, it is a nice board.  What was awesome other individuals where selling the mobo water blocks too.