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Is it good to buy used PC parts?

2015-10-23
what's going on guys Jays two cents here and today we're going to talk about a topic that I've been asked to do a lot of but I never really thought made for a good video but because there's so many requests for it I decided we'll go ahead and do it that's gonna be my opinion on purchasing used hardware in order to try and get better parts for cheaper to ultimately get the most out of your money when it comes to building your systems the new z170 classified motherboard from EVGA features eight phase PWM four-way SLI support along with top notch components to offer gamers and enthusiasts more of what they want a badass motherboard with no compromises click the link below to learn more building new computers is fun and it's fun to have brand new off-the-shelf parts and I'm not going to lie when I say that getting that brand-new computer smell or a new motherboard or new graphics card for even that matter it's fun to open it up and unbox it and it's just it gives you a nice rush when it comes to unboxing brand-new stuff and this might actually surprise a lot of people but until I started doing YouTube and then the channel grew when I started getting parts accumulating around here for review that I can eventually build a complete system out of I had never built a completely brand-new out-of-the-box PC without using something used within the system I just never could afford that so maybe this is a good video topic for me to talk about because I have experience with doing a lot of forum browsing and a lot of online classified ads and buying used parts and I think I have something to offer to the discussion when it comes to buying new or used I think very few people in this world are lucky enough to own brand new everything I mean when it comes to cars or furniture or houses computer parts TVs stereos I think a lot of people spend time browsing on Craigslist or forums trying to find the best deal for lightly or gently used product I mean if you were the kind of person that needed new everything when it comes to your dating prospects it would be a very small ocean of fish to choose from today we're going to specifically talk about used graphics cards but it really will apply to any component inside your system now use graphics cards Freaks a lot of people out because everyone else are so easy to overclock and people are very afraid that overclocking is going to make the longevity and lifespan of this card really fall through the floor where you're going to buy it and two weeks later it's going to die on you I don't know exactly how much life you could really cut off of this thing and I don't think there would be any conclusive data and even a controlled environment to tell you exactly how much life you cut off of a graphics card by overclocking it for either short period of time or long periods of time but I will tell you this that I did own an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 6 gigahertz East 6300 CPU that I overclocked 23.4 2 gigahertz for an 80% overclock she's like 79.5 on a roundup 80% overclocked that I ran for seven years at that overclock and that was not a turbo clock it ran three point four to constantly the moment the PC booted to the moment the PC turned off there was no throttling in there whatsoever no turbo boost or turbo clock it just ran at balls-to-the-wall the entire time seven years or what ultimately ended up dying was not the chip it was the motherboard and died due to physical damage not to any sort of degradation now that doesn't mean that the graphics card is not going to experience degradation it's going to but chances are the graphics card itself as long as it's overclocked through stock bios of something you know like through MSI Afterburner or precision or OC guru or whatever app that you would use usually the amount of life that you're shaving off the bottom of the card is going to really be negligible when it comes to the fact that the card will probably become obsolete and not be able to run your favorite games at graphics frame rates that you want that's going to happen long before this is going to die due to overclocking so I'm personally of the mindset that buying used product if you know where it's coming from and you trust the buyer it's not necessarily a bad thing now there are some things that you can do to remove some of the risk because when you buy a used product there's risk involved no matter what you can't get away from that and you can't say that this card dying two months after you got it as long as it worked when you got it meant that the buyer knew it was going to break that's usually not the case now if you're going to buy used products from a forum make sure you check their feedback also too if you're buying from a forum make sure you look at how long they've been on that forum a lot of people will sign up on forums simply to sell their stuff they have no posting history they have no trustworthiness they have no established presence within that forum that's someone that I would probably stay away from if they say something like oh it's also for sale on this forum go and check their trustworthiness over on that forum as well as any feedback that they might have now Craigslist I don't buy PC parts off of Craigslist never have never will I have no idea where it's come from there's no documented history whatsoever and there's no feedback system for Craigslist also who knows it's stolen I don't know it's a whole nother conversation you really aren't going to be able to know it's something stolen until you get your hands on it and then check the serial number with the vendor half the time even they won't know because a lot of people don't register their stuff I kind of leads me into the next section of mine used hardware is is it still within warranty and is it registered back in the day a lot of companies did not transfer the warranty which I thought was really shitty amongst the manufacturers where that was really a cop-out for them to be able to say oh you're not the person you bought it therefore we're not going to warranty it what's it matter this is what your warranty anticip that now where the item is warranteed for a specific date from purchase now if you don't have a purchase receipt a lot of times they will just automatically go back to the release date of the product and if you're within that one-year two-year five-year whatever the release date a lot of times they'll still honor it but I would also stay away from any brands that do not on to honor transferred warranties for use products I honestly think buying use is a good thing you can quite honestly increase your performance by lowering the amount of money you're spending or at the very least get more performance for the same amount if you can buy components that are used and that you trust obviously CPUs motherboards and graphics cards are going to be the most expensive bulks of your system and you can get some pretty good deals usually from very trustworthy people on the forums so in order to reduce the amount of risk of you getting a bad piece of hardware when buying used I would maybe ask the seller these questions one did they buy it newer used are you going to be the second owner or third owner or even more than that how many times has it traded hints if they bought it new do they still have the receipt from where for where they bought it from if they have the receipt that's like getting receipts for work done on a cop buying a used car the manufacturer can use that as well to validate you know that the thing was purchased legitimately does it still have a warranty and is the warranty transferable like we just talked about did they overclocked the card not that it's going to really increase your risk too much when it comes to whether or not the card is potentially going to dial in on you in the future you at least will get some idea one of how far it over clocks because often they'll tell you yeah I got this overclock at this voltage now I'm personally not turned away by hardware that's been overclocked in fact it often gives you an idea of how far you can push the thing especially if you were looking at overclocking it yourself in fact back in the day on hard form there was a guy who sold and used I five 2500 K for more than retail because he had proof through prime95 instability testing screenshots that the thing was stable at five gigahertz at low voltage and people were all over that so sometimes the overclock ability is a selling point last but not least ask them why they are selling it hopefully they'll be honest hopefully they're not trying to sell something that's in stable has a terrible overclock sometimes they'll just say I'm just not using it or I upgraded my system if they have proof of the upgrade then you can believe them but sometimes people will buy something find out it's a terrible overclocker then rather than do the shady method of returning it to the store or RMA it which is really kind of shady when you return something cuz it doesn't overclock as far as you wanted they'll just go and sell it use take a loss on the forms and try again and then you're stuck with something that may not overclock well when you were kind of hoping that that would be the case now motherboard specifically when buying used request a picture of the socket if it's an AMD socket it's not going to be a huge deal but if it's Intel requests a picture of the socket to make sure that there are no bent pins bent pins on a socket is usually a death sentence for an Intel motherboard but buying used hardware is not necessarily a bad thing in fact that's why scrapyard wars over online aesthetic but I think is so popular is because it really touches base or hits home with a lot of buyers who would be doing like the exact same thing trying to source used hardware to get a good deal now a couple years ago I said I wanted to do like an eBay build or see what I could come up with for a set amount of money and buy you stuff obviously scrapyard wars beat me to that maybe I'll do this in the future not as a comp which is what scrapyard Wars is but I just would set myself like let's say 700 bucks or something like that buy the product off of forums kind of vlog where I'm looking and how the sales are going and then put the system together benchmark it and then I don't know do something with the system like give it away or whatever I'll probably end up doing something like that in the future but for now if you guys are looking at buying used hardware just keep those tips in mind that I just gave you and usually you'll come out on top at the end the hardest part is finding the right price some people discount it only a little bit for being used some people want to move the product quickly because they need the money to offset a new build and now some you can sometimes find an amazing deal for instance you can get a 780ti now for about two hundred and twenty dollars on forms a 780ti for two hundred twenty bucks is going to beat anything new you could get today and just smack it around the ring like it's John Cena or some like that for that amount of money there's nothing you could buy today for 220 that's new that's going to keep paces with a 780ti period alright guys I hope this videos helped you you guys wanted my opinion on use product this is it no fancy editing no transitions or b-roll just kind of having a conversation with you guys so it's the weekend I make it outta here I got some videos to get together we just found out that a friend of ours is gone into labor out in Arizona so I might be taking a little leave of absence for a little bit while we go visit a new family so anyway guys time to get out of here see you on social media and if not we'll see you in the next video and as always thanks for all
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