It's time to play every computer geeks favorite game....

[vtlion]

WHAT'S MY OLD COMPUTER WORTH?!?!?! 

In anticipation of writing my dissertation, I'm finally bringing my home computer into the new millennium.  After looking into upgrading a la carte, I realized that I needed to replace essentally EVERY part of my system and it would be more cost effective to simply replace the entire thing and find something to do with the old one.

Living in a college town I'm sure some student or research group could use a good MS Office workstation or print server, so I'm thinking about just yanking the hard drive out and selling the whole system.  So what do you think these components would be worth bundled on ebay or craigslist?  Probably not much, but give me an idea.


AMD athalon 750Mhz Slot processor and Motherboard.
640M PC133 RAM (2x256 +1x128)
AGP voodoo4 video board (32M/133MHz)
10/100 ethernet card
250W power supply
CDROM
3.5" floppy
I can throw in the 15" CRT monitor as well if interested
NO HD or OS included (I'm keeping the hard drive)


for those interested, I'm upgrading to an Athalon64 3500, 1G DDR, 128M onboard video, which I know isn't exactly a screamer these days, but on a grad studen's budget, the FX chips were out of the question 

thanks for the input!

[skoebl]

Wow....you waited quite a while to upgrade 

I would guess about $250-$300 at the absolute most.

At our shop we would just strip it and hang the parts on our wall 


I totally understand having to upgrade EVERYTHING. My computer is about 5 years old and that's what it would take.

[yamahonkawazuki]

honestly vt i would say$200 at the most, (w/o hdd or os,) next question, are you building a new one, or are you going prebuilt aka dell hp etc etc etc,

[vtlion]

I'm buying a refurbed Gateway OEM.  Actually I got it from TigerDirect since it was about a hundred bucks cheaper than gatweay's outlet site.  It should be pretty upgradeable:

939 mobo with an Athalon64 3500 processor - the 939 boards can go up to AthalonFX (I think)
1G DDR 400MHz (2x512M) two additional open slots (i.e. 4G max)
Had to go with the integrated Vid because no AGP slot for my VooDoo4 board.
Comes with Windows Media Center

The plan is to use this new system to write my dissertation which involves some heavy graphics and large files (hence the purchase now), then graduate and get gainfully employed so I can get that FX processor, extra RAM and a PCI-e video board for gaming (not to mention a big-arse LCD monitor). 

[calamari]

$80 or maybe $90 if you are lucky

with $200 you can buy a new barebones computer today.

[Dr. Love]

My build from August 06 cost me 700 CAD ~ 600 USD (and that's with 14% sales tax)...

Aspire X-Qpack (very nice SFF case )
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
eVGA GeForce7600GS
2x512MB OCZ Gold DDR2 800
ECS miniATX mobo
WD 160 GB SATA II HD
LG LG GSA-H10N DVD Writer
Linksys Wireless-G network card

What's your budget? Why not build your own system than buy refurbished? 

[vtlion]

My budget was abou 450 US, and my goal was to beef up the processor to 64 bit and jack up the video capability.

To upgrade piecemeal would be a 939 socket mobo with Athalon 64 processor, which makes my RAM obsolete.  Most 939 mobos do not come with AGP anymore, making my video card obsolete as well.  So now I'm looking at 250 US plus shipping to upgrade to the mobo with video, processor with cooling and RAM to my setup with my existing 20G HD, CDROM and 250W power supply.

450 gets me the new system which includes all of the above, plus a 200G HD, DVD rewriter, new case, 300W power supply, a license for Windows Media Center (which I need) and peripherals.  Plus the benefit of having my existing system intact either to use, donate or sell.

I'll be using this system as a starting point for upgrades later.  It's a very expandable system, and considering the drives, peripherals and the software license, well worth the sum of its parts IMO.

[Dr. Love]

Sure, it's a pretty good deal  but note that FX for socket 939's pretty expensive darn expensive compare to performance afforded by much cheaper AM2s 

[sys49152]

The system will be fine for everything you intend to do.  If by "heavy graphics" you mean diagrams/flowcharts/pictures, the integrated video card will be fine.  And the price seems fair.

I usually suggest not buying a system based on its perceived upgrade-ability .  Except for hard drive and *maybe* memory upgrades, system and component prices drop so quickly that stuff just disappears from the market or new middle-of-the-road-performance stuff is nearly as cheap so there's really no point. 

Instead I suggest if you want to keep your system for two or three years, you figure out how much your willing to spend per year for that period.  So in your case I'd say $150/year (3 years), and then after three years re-evaluate what you're willing to spend per year on the next system.

[vtlion]

by 'heavy graphics' all I mean is large Illustrator files (48"x48" at 600dpi) and some open GL rendering programs for biomolecular work.  It's not terriby taxing by modern computing standards, but my current setup runs them very choppy and I can't manipulate the molecular models or Illustrator objects easily because of the less-than-fluid motion during manipulations.

For now, most of what I'm doing is based on budgetary parameters that are a little odd.  I expect to receive an approximately 400% payraise later this year, so I really just need something to get me through the year and then I can re-evaluate exactly what I want to do in the form of upgrades.  Regardless, the system I ordered will be fine for what I need right now.

As for the question of my old system, I figured it was only worth a few bucks, but I thought I'd just test the waters and see if it would be worth trying to sell.  Sounds like I might be able to wrangle 75 US or so out of it, which might be worth my time.

Thanks for the input everybody!

[annguyen1981]

Just a suggestion...

If you donate it to the Salvation Army or some other NP organization, you can probably deduct more than what you would get $$$ wise.

Just make sure you get a "statement" from the organization detailing the donation if you do.  The Salvation Army will give you a sheet with prices that you can use to deduct from your taxes.

[jdanna]

http://cgi.ebay.com/SGI-Octane-2-Dual-400-400x2-1280MB-9GB-V8-Gfx_W0QQitemZ250075009039QQihZ015QQcategoryZ11223QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


just buy that. it will at least be cooler

[vtlion]

Those are SWEEET.  lol

We actually have two Octane sytems at work right now running our NMR spectrometers.  Gotta love those things.  They are tanks.

[natedawg120]

$80 or maybe $90 if you are lucky

with $200 you can buy a new barebones computer today.

Hate to say it but i agree with this.  I build a friend a computer, within your budget that was a athlon 64 3500, 512MB ram, main board with integrated everything, 250 GB HDD ... everything but a monitor. 

[vtlion]

and a boosted/recycled operating system I assume?

I'm still rockin' Win2000 on this bad-boy and the discs are long since gone, so I would be looking at purchasing a full version of XP.  Even the PSU student licenses are stupid expensive.

An XP license is about a hundred bucks these days.  Gotta factor that in with the rest.  If I had access to software, then a build would be a better way to go, but the OS licenses would gobble up any money I saved. 

[natedawg120]

nah i got a copy of windows for 12 bucks from the college that i graduated from, they have a sweet deal

[vtlion]

nah i got a copy of windows for 12 bucks from the college that i graduated from, they have a sweet deal

Penn State isn't so generous 

[natedawg120]

Yeah neither is VT but Radford has a great deal.  Probably because it is a smaller university.

[yamahonkawazuki]

My budget was abou 450 US, and my goal was to beef up the processor to 64 bit and jack up the video capability.

To upgrade piecemeal would be a 939 socket mobo with Athalon 64 processor, which makes my RAM obsolete.  Most 939 mobos do not come with AGP anymore, making my video card obsolete as well.  So now I'm looking at 250 US plus shipping to upgrade to the mobo with video, processor with cooling and RAM to my setup with my existing 20G HD, CDROM and 250W power supply.

450 gets me the new system which includes all of the above, plus a 200G HD, DVD rewriter, new case, 300W power supply, a license for Windows Media Center (which I need) and peripherals.  Plus the benefit of having my existing system intact either to use, donate or sell.

I'll be using this system as a starting point for upgrades later.  It's a very expandable system, and considering the drives, peripherals and the software license, well worth the sum of its parts IMO.

is the new mobo pci-e ( for vid? if so ive got a 256mb 6600le vid card up for grabs CHEAP like around 20 or so

[yamahonkawazuki]

Sure, it's a pretty good deal  but note that FX for socket 939's pretty expensive darn expensive compare to performance afforded by much cheaper AM2s 

you can grab an opteron 165 which is damn close to an fx55 alot cheaper than you can the equivalent fx