Second hand kit, what to trust?

[Anonymous]

So looking around in town today I spotted 2x8Gb DDR3 RAM. This would set me back just £56. A steal imho. I don’t know much about the brand, it was hidden at the back and I was in a bit of a rush.

 

However, I know that RAM can die, so is it worth the risk?

[PlaneMan]

<p style=”text-align: right;”>From where ?</p>

[Dave Rice]

As long as it has at least a 30 day guarantee I’d go for it. That will give you plenty of time to run all the diagnostics you want.

TBH I haven’t had any ram issues since DDR3. These days I get the best deals from Amazon and lately that’s all been Timetec Hynix, both desktop and laptop. I don’t pay any attention to speed and latency, it’s all more than quick enough. It’s all coexisted with whatever ram was already in the systems.

Timetec have a lifetime guarantee and their website is along the lines of the big boys with a memory finder by system / mobo etc https://www.timetecinc.com/

[Anonymous]

Yes that’s an obvious thing I should have mentioned .It was in cex.

 

Thanks for the tot Dave .

[Ed P]

Cex  still offer a two year warranty which I think makes it stupid to buy second-hand anywhere else!

link

[Leon]

On the subject of second hand kit seen this on a local Facebook page, any thoughts

Genuine modular Nvidia Cooler Master case with roof and rear 20cm fans and green neon lighting.

Genuine Cooler Master 850W power supply

Intel Core i7 920 processor with *brand new* Cooler Master MasterAir heatsink and fan

ASUStek P6T motherboard

8GB of fast DDR3 memory

1.5TB hard drive

AMD Radeon HD7870 graphics card

OS Linux Mint 64 bit

This is a very large, and heavy, high quality cased computer. The original casters come supplied with it should you wish to make it easier to roll about (they do increase the height by a few inches though)

In used, but great condition throughout. £200 Read less

[Richard]

My question is always, why are they selling it, as it sounds a tasty bundle for an apparently modest cost?

[PlaneMan]

Old, but still decent, CPU and an oldish GPU. Price is probably in the right area.

[Dave Rice]

I agree the price is about right. You have to remember just how old the i7 920 is, a £40 Pentium G4400 will show it a clean pair of heels in single threaded applications with a TDP of 54 watts vs 130 watts. The HD7870 is another electricity guzzler.

If you need the multi-threaded performance I’d swap the graphics card for a cheap GT710 .

If it’s just for an “office” type machine £220 buys you a new Punch Technology SFF G4400 / 4GB / 1TB from E-Buyer

Let’s put it this way, I have an almost identical spec machine donated to the charity I look after and it’s used as a spare. The main office machines are dual core Celerons or Pentiums with SSDs. There’s nothing wrong with it apart from it’s age, but don’t expect anything spectacular.

[Richard]

Wow, you are right, the CPU is about ten years old, even older than my i3, which I have no current plans to change, as it does all that I currently want. I guess any really useful upgrade would retain little more than the monster case, perhaps that is why it is for sale, thus answering my original question. All in all it makes me feel old, (I am) and shows I am off the pace, (I am that also).

[The Duke]

Chist that’s almost the rig i game in still. i7 920 8gb ram and gtx970. The old i7 920, its like the terminated of cpus.

As dave said, there is far less power hungry alternatives out there today. I just can’t bare part with mine. The day will come.

[Dave Rice]

When the i7 920 arrived (bust RAID array, both HDDs – just ignore error messages until it won’t start at all…) I was surprised with just how sluggish it was (spare HDD put in). Of course it’s the spinner causing the issue but even with an SSD we decided to leave the Pentiums be, whereas the anticipation had been where would we best deploy it.

So a spare it is, but even then the gas guzzling graphics card was replaced with a spare GT 210. In it’s former life it started as a state of the art CAD machine!

[Anonymous]

The Duke wrote:

Chist that’s almost the rig i game in still. i7 920 8gb ram and gtx970. The old i7 920, its like the terminated of cpus. As dave said, there is far less power hungry alternatives out there today. I just can’t bare part with mine. The day will come.

Why 8Gb of RAM?! The i7 920 is triple channel affair. It wants, 3Gb, 6Gb, 12Gb, etc.

[Leon]

Thanks guys. I did have a look on eBay and it realised its was a bit long in the tooth. Forgot how long the i7 has been about.

I was thinking about using it resurrect my old gaming pc. It was a Dave special but the mb died and now has a second had  gigabyte in it. It’s been untouched in the bottom of the wardrobe since xp was ended

[The Duke]

Pm – I found the triple vs double gave little difference.

The real reason is I stole ram out of it for anther rig. Didn’t have any real world noticeable drop off, so never bother to replace it. Even though I have a few sticks of ddr3 kicking around now,  just o lazy to break the PC open. Well scared, its old and working, i don’t want to jinx it by trying to fix something that isn’t broken.

Also i use it to work on most of the time now, may gaming 5ime on not is very low these days. I’d love to game more, i just don’t. I don’t think I’ve played a game this side of Xmas on it.

Buts its been a manic few months here tbh.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I am surprised you find your i7920 slugish Dave.

As I have mentioned before I have an i7930 running at 3.9Ghz and it is one of the snappyest systems I have ever used. Even visitors comment on this.

[Author]

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