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Is this PC worth it?

By on April 7, 2012 4:24:49 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

A coworker of mine is intending to sell off one of his older PCs, and start another from scratch. He's asking $550. I've looked up the price of the parts, and so far, adding everything up is worth more then he's asking, and it's about 5 months old.

I'm pretty illiterate when it comes to building PCs, so I'm hoping someone who's more experienced then me can help me out and give me a second opinion. 

Athlon II x4 631

PNY Nvidea GeForce 560 ti

Biostar Ta75mt 

Hyper 212 plus CPU cooler

Warlock 1100w psu

500gb hard drive, and 16g ram, a touchscreen fan controller thingy on the case.

+2 Karma | 13 Replies
April 7, 2012 5:16:25 AM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

sounds a reasonable deal ASSUMING there is a genuine windows licence  with it ( easy way to tell is if there is a microsoft sticker with five groups of five numbers/letters on it) for the windows version that is installed on the computer,

BUT to use it you will want another screen keyboard and mouse for it. the screen is the bit you look at, the mouse is the bit you move around on the desk, and the keyboard is the large flat bit that has lots (typically 104 or more) buttons on it and also the leads to connect all the bits togeather so that it can work.

hope this helps

harpo

 

April 7, 2012 5:53:01 AM from Elemental Forums Elemental Forums

There's also a few things about that rig that make me think "overclocking attempt machine" - ie fan controllers, aftermarket cooler, huge wattage psu, the specific cpu used in the build.  If its important to you, I'd investigate if it was used for that, as overclocking would have voided any manufacturer warranties (whether the manufacturers would know or not is a different beast).  And theoretically if it was overclocked the parts could be damaged.  So something to consider, don't know how close the coworker is and if they'd ever pull something like that.  If it was used for overclocking its not necessarily bad, its just an added risk since technically it would have no warranty and if you don't know much about computers it would be difficult to know if anything was damaged in an overclocking attempt (unlikely but never know.)

Parts look fine for a mid range gaming rig, the PSU's a bit "no name" with a higher rate of failure than some, but probably as good as the generic you'd get in a dell or something.  Ditto on the motherboard, biostar is pretty generic as you can get.  The 560 is probably the nicest part, and the 16 gigs of RAM, though that's a bit of overkill.

As the previous poster said, see if it has a real windows OS disk with it; if it doesn't, buying one to get legal would be another 100 bucks at least for windows 7.

In all if the windows is legit, and setting aside other concerns, I'd say its a pretty decent deal, especially if you want a mid to mid high gaming computer.  A 560 should handle a lot of current games on high settings, and the CPU shouldn't bottleneck it too much.  You could probably grab a dell or something on sale that had a better CPU/ hard drive and such for about that same price, but you'd probably have to toss in 100-200 extra for a good gaming GPU.

April 7, 2012 10:12:15 AM from Elemental Forums Elemental Forums

Windows is not a given.  You can install Linux on it for free.   And from there you can do things like VMWare or wine to emulate Windows from Linux.   You also have the option later to install them both and give yourself the choice at boot-up which you want to use (that's called grub).   But this assumes you know what you are doing--you just may be a software guy rather than a hardware guy.   The pros and cons of Linux vs. Windows are the subject of numerous religious threads that go on and on..., but on a self-built rig like that which may not have Windows OEM pre-installed, Linux is the route I would probably go for myself, personally.   Knowing Linux is worth tens of thousands of dollars in salary if you want a career in the tech field.  Although Linux is the better OS, you more-or-less have to have Windows running natively if you intend to do any serious gaming. 

April 7, 2012 1:44:17 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Well, thanks a lot to all yalls. I'm pretty tempted by the offer, and it does have Windows 7. Not sure which, or if it's legit. (I wouldn't be surprised if it's not) He did overclock it, but I was considering that to be a good thing. I know it's a little more risky, but I don't know how to do that, and I'd trust him more on that anyways.

I'm thinking ima ask him to throw in, what was it called again harpo, that thingy I move around the screen with, and the other thing with all the buttons...? And then calling it a deal.

April 7, 2012 2:11:35 PM from Elemental Forums Elemental Forums

So long as your coworker is a close enough friend to be willing to help you out on tech support for the life of the computer, and did enough testing to be sure that its a stable overclock for regular use.  If you do buy it and start getting crops of BSOD's or other crashes, just be aware it could be from the overclock, and you might have to tone it down.  Hard to know how far he pushed it or how experienced he is at the process (some of the part decisions say more casual/early overclocker but never know).  If he's good to help out if there are ever issues, its not that big of a risk.

Anyways, sounds like you're happy with it, and though there's nothing that screams great deal, nothing that screams bad stuff.  Should be pretty good for gaming for a few years at least.

April 7, 2012 2:52:52 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting FallingStar0280,
So long as your coworker is a close enough friend to be willing to help you out on tech support for the life of the computer

My 2 cents as a guy who's built more than 100 computers and sold them to pals, etc.  If you really don't know exactly what you are doing/getting into, I'd recommend just ordering a low end pc from dell or something to that effect. Anywhere that you get some sort of tech support as needed if there are problems.  Expecting whoever sold the pc to you to provide tech support is a no win for the guy that sold you the parts (eg he gave you a deal and now is expected to fix problems that come your way for free?).  I typically sell my stuff as is and then provide a really basic statement - if you notice any issues over the next couple of weeks, let me know.  Beyond that, the person is on their own unless they want to pay for my time to fix em up. $550 probably doesn't include life time tech support, eh?  Furthermore, if its overclocked, you probably aren't going to know all that much on what do change to get it back to clock settings if you have problems, and so on.  There's > potential for issues with this. 

To me, it looks like an ok deal (and he's doing pretty much the same thing I do when I want to upgrade - I bake in a discount because the parts are used and then use that money on my new rig).  If you do go with it, ask him to give you a fresh install of windows7 and tell him you need the product key.  If he won't do that, then I can guarantee you can talk him down on the price about $50 or so.  Oh and side note, there is no way in hell all of those parts are 5 months old. 

April 7, 2012 3:08:35 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

TROLL MUCH?

 

  1. Is this PC worth it? » Forum Post by Cooljedidude

     
    forums.elementalgame.com/421434
    10 hours ago – Biostar Ta75mt. Hyper 212 plus CPU cooler. Warlock 1100w psu. 500gb hard drive, and 16g ram, a touchscreen fan controller thingy on the ...
  2. Is this PC worth it? » Forum Post by Cooljedidude

     
    forums.demigodthegame.com/421434
    7 hours ago – Biostar Ta75mt. Hyper 212 plus CPU cooler. Warlock 1100w psu. 500gb hard drive, and 16g ram, a touchscreen fan controller thingy on the ...
  3. Is this PC worth it? » Forum Post by Cooljedidude

     
    forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/421434
    10 hours ago – Biostar Ta75mt. Hyper 212 plus CPU cooler. Warlock 1100w psu. 500gb hard drive, and 16g ram, a touchscreen fan controller thingy on the ...
  4. Is this PC worth it? » Forum Post by Cooljedidude

     
    forums.galciv2.com/421434
    9 hours ago – Biostar Ta75mt. Hyper 212 plus CPU cooler. Warlock 1100w psu. 500gb hard drive, and 16g ram, a touchscreen fan controller thingy on the ...
  5. Is this PC worth it? » Forum Post by Cooljedidude

     
    forums.stardock.com/421434
    10 hours ago – Biostar Ta75mt. Hyper 212 plus CPU cooler. Warlock 1100w psu. 500gb hard drive, and 16g ram, a touchscreen fan controller thingy on the ...
  6. computer accessories.

     
    www.moto163.net/s.php?id=345147609
    CPU: AMD 631: TA75MT: WD Biostar motherboard hard drive memory card 500G: 4G: HD 6770 1GB GDDR5 sapphire platinum edition or HD6770 1024M D5 ...
April 7, 2012 3:20:27 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

... red - you can look up any forum post on the SD sites by typing forum.STARDOCKWEBSITENAME.com/POSTID.

It's just how sd handles things... notice that the postid is the same in all of those?  I guess with the exception of the moto one...

Anyway, here's one of my threads https://forums.demigodthegame.com/421453

change demigodthegame to joeuser and you'll see the same thread - and I only made the one post.

Same thing goes for one of your posts:  http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/421351

It's also at https://forums.demigodthegame.com/421351
and http://forums.joeuser.com/421351

and... so on.

Also not sure how spamming the same thread (which didn't happen) would be trolling.  Anyway, hope that clears up any confusion.

April 8, 2012 9:41:06 AM from Stardock Forums Stardock Forums

I would honestly pass on it.  Obvious overclocking attempt as someone else posted and you don't know if you overclocked it wrong or too high and fried something to the point it isn't stable.

April 8, 2012 12:08:53 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting pacov,
Also not sure how spamming the same thread (which didn't happen) would be trolling.

 

Guess I jumped the gun on that.  Sorry dude.  Not a troll.  

 

Please accept this kitty as a token of my humble apologies.  

April 8, 2012 12:32:26 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Kitty accepted!

April 9, 2012 12:34:07 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire Forums Sins of a Solar Empire Forums

I don't understand what the heck yall are talking about, but whatever it is, thanks for clearing that up Pacov.

On another note, I've after talking him down to a flat $500, I've agreed to take him up on the deal come payday. Thank you all for the input. 

April 9, 2012 1:21:19 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Hope everything works out for you, jedi!  New pc here you come.

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