I am starting to suspect the eBay search engine no longer does not do what you tell it. I have been manually bringing out things that should have come top in keyword/lowest-price searches, but did not even appear on the first page. I think it's gone to profit optimisation over customer service. Enhanced impatience tax.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-05-22, 16:31:

I am starting to suspect the eBay search engine no longer does not do what you tell it. I have been manually bringing out things that should have come top in keyword/lowest-price searches, but did not even appear on the first page. I think it's gone to profit optimisation over customer service. Enhanced impatience tax.

I have seen the same happen...some things show up in suggestions, and when you actually search for the same item it doesn't show up anymore. This or the search is just awful.

Mandrew wrote on 2024-05-22, 14:55:

Once you leave it and look around locally you'll find anything you need at a fair price... after a few months or years.

Maybe if you live near a city and aren't looking for much.

I live in a rural area (several hours from any moderately sized cities) and even when actively advertising to take old PC stuff I have only gotten 3-4 lots of stuff from old computer guys in 8 years of active searching and very little of it was really useful or desirable stuff.

Sadly, it seems that over the years many of the old-school PC repair techs have been convinced to turn their "junk" into gold as well, so very few have keep retro gear this long. There aren't any recycling companies around here that let you pick through stuff either.

Anyway, it comes down to if you are trying to find\collect something specific, how much you are willing to spend to get it and what your time is worth waiting\looking for deals.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-05-22, 18:32:

Maybe if you live near a city and aren't looking for much.

No offense but you can make awesome deals locally and probably have them shipped to you for peanuts, in my case it's $3.50 for shipping to a parcel locker. So it doesn't matter where you live in your country as long as you avoid international auction sites. Yes, it's going to be slower than shopping internationally but you don't have to live in a big city to get great deals.

I got this recently for $10 shipped, god knows how much it would've cost if I wanted it off Ebay and not locally. People are too damn impatient then complain about high prices.

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-05-22, 16:31:

I am starting to suspect the eBay search engine no longer does not do what you tell it. I have been manually bringing out things that should have come top in keyword/lowest-price searches, but did not even appear on the first page. I think it's gone to profit optimisation over customer service. Enhanced impatience tax.

They harangue me to do the paid promotion on all of the items I sell, so I'd imagine that my listings get buried when I decline to do so.

Mandrew wrote on 2024-05-22, 18:52:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-05-22, 18:32:

Maybe if you live near a city and aren't looking for much.

No offense but you can make awesome deals locally and probably have them shipped to you for peanuts, in my case it's $3.50 for shipping to a parcel locker. So it doesn't matter where you live in your country as long as you avoid international auction sites. Yes, it's going to be slower than shopping internationally but you don't have to live in a big city to get great deals.

I got this recently for $10 shipped, god knows how much it would've cost if I wanted it off Ebay and not locally. People are too damn impatient then complain about high prices.

No offense taken. I don't really understand what you mean by making deals locally and having them shipped to you? Where I am from in the US, "locally" is within a reasonable driving distance (say 50 miles or so one way) which I gauge by the amount\quality\value of the items available. If I am having things shipped to me, I don't consider them local, and they have to be available on a marketplace somehow for me to purchase them, or someone has to specifically contact me to let me know what they have.

I am active on all of the usual marketplaces and I would estimate that less than 1% of my hardware collection has come from local (in person) purchases, and less than 5% has come from anywhere other than ebay. And I actively search for this stuff daily, often multiple times. In the US, the vast majority of people on online marketplaces other than ebay have no interest in shipping things, so unless someone has an item already listed for shipping or they are within driving distance of me (incredibly unlikely considering the area I am in), the items are simply not available to me... and yes, I do ask if people will ship, just in case.

Also, it's worth noting that I do not spend a ton on the stuff I buy. I don't have the money to do that. Other people have more money than time, so they spend more to get what they want for their collection. And that is totally okay with me. These are likely the people that buy parts from me when I'm done cleaning, repairing and testing them (which allows me to keep doing what I do).

Personally, I buy in lots, which brings the cost of individual parts way down and makes for a fun treasure-hunt kind of feeling. 😀

I completely agree that complaining about prices is pointless, and patience will save you money (usually because you will just not buy anything), but above all if you're looking for rare old hardware you have to look constantly and in as many places as possible.

I agree that local buying refers to getting things within driving distance. The moment you're shipping from other cities or countries, that's no longer buying locally.

Where I live, local pickings are pretty slim these days. Any time anything from the 90s comes up for sale, it's usually gone pretty quick. I have lucked out with some good deals in the past couple years. For example, getting a pair of NOS CRT monitors for only $50 apiece. But those types of deals are rare.

Most of my hardware comes from Ebay since from an availability perspective, it's often my only option. Especially when looking for highly specific pieces of hardware.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-05-22, 19:23:

Where I am from in the US, "locally" is within a reasonable driving distance ** If I am having things shipped to me, I don't consider them local

I consider everything "local" if it's located in the country because shipping costs are the same no matter where the item is located. That makes distance irrelevant when I'm buying retro.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-05-22, 19:23:

less than 5% has come from anywhere other than ebay

That's because the Land of the Plenty has most of the retro hardware that's available on Ebay. It's perfectly natural in a country with 300m+ people and above average wealth. People buy more new stuff and throw away the old ones so resellers have a steady source of hardware. People in less wealthy countries tend to hold onto computers much longer. Large auction sites always set their prices to wealthy countries with more disposable income and that creates those inflated prices. It happens locally too but it's rare because those people either want to get rid of their trash or sell within a reasonable amount of time. It doesn't mean that there are no good deals on Ebay but it mostly suits buyers from wealthier countries unless it's some common mass-produced stuff nobody wants. Those are always the cheapest from China.
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Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-05-22, 19:23:

if you're looking for rare old hardware you have to look constantly and in as many places as possible.

Indeed, and you have to be lucky too. I also buy job lots, go to flea markets and visit e-waste sites, it's all 100% luck. Sometimes you win the World but other times you go home with a bloody nose and out of $30.

Mandrew wrote on 2024-05-22, 20:00:

I consider everything "local" if it's located in the country because shipping costs are the same no matter where the item is located. That makes distance irrelevant when I'm buying retro.

That probably depends on your country. Living in Canada, shipping costs are not universal across the country.

In some cases, it's actually cheaper to ship things to the U.S. than within Canada.

Took delivery of this AGP Sapphire Radeon 3850 HD this week. Really excited for this card, since it's the fastest 8x AGP card I know of.

Planning to use this in my next iteration of an "all-in-one" Pentium 4 retro build. My previous build tops out at early 2000s XP. With this card, I'm hoping to include Vista and possibly Windows 7, and extend the useful gaming range into the late 2000s.

Mandrew wrote on 2024-05-22, 20:00:

I consider everything "local" if it's located in the country because shipping costs are the same no matter where the item is located. That makes distance irrelevant when I'm buying retro.

As Shponglefan said, shipping prices in the US are nowhere near universal, partially because everything is so spread out. This affects shipping and trying to buy in person. The state I live in is about the size of the average country in the EU and only has about 13 million people in it, and only a small percentage of those people live within a few hours of me. Frequently, Facebook marketplace will show me a great listing in my state, but it would take me *6 hours* to drive there at 60-70mph. Hardly anything would be worth that for me, because I don't really enjoy traveling to cities anyway.

Also, regarding shipping costs, a single small video or sound card may only be $5 to ship to most places here but hardly anyone is going to waste time trying to list that, deal with questions, package it and ship it for only $5 profit on a $10 sale. That will barely buy a gallon of milk or gasoline anymore. Some do, however, and they are more likely to sell on ebay than on other platforms.

Mandrew wrote on 2024-05-22, 20:00:

That's because the Land of the Plenty has most of the retro hardware that's available on Ebay. It's perfectly natural in a country with 300m+ people and above average wealth. People buy more new stuff and throw away the old ones so resellers have a steady source of hardware. People in less wealthy countries tend to hold onto computers much longer. Large auction sites always set their prices to wealthy countries with more disposable income and that creates those inflated prices. It happens locally too but it's rare because those people either want to get rid of their trash or sell within a reasonable amount of time. It doesn't mean that there are no good deals on Ebay but it mostly suits buyers from wealthier countries unless it's some common mass-produced stuff nobody wants. Those are always the cheapest from China.

Honestly, the fact that so much old stuff has existed for as long as it has is pretty cool in my opinion. I hate the throw-away mentality of people, but being from a small town in a poor part of the country it is much less of a thing here... which probably makes it even harder for me to find stuff since it's all still sitting in peoples' attics! 🤣 Really, people must not be throwing things away too quickly if we're still seeing 20-30 year old computer hardware showing up for sale in good condition on a regular basis.

Gold scrappers and "recycling" companies are the main things hurting the availability of rare old parts here. These days there are even recycling companies that buy\sell retro stuff on the side and they have ridiculous budgets for doing so, with little care or interest involved in the items themselves or whether they even work.

I'm sure there's some guy making a decent wage scooping up half of the good items on ebay while earning his employer almost nothing due to all the overhead of running such a business in a big city (paying him and paying for whatever offers\purchases he's making, plus shipping items back and forth). I'd rather they do that than scrap them, but it's kind of a lame that the hobbyists with small budgets miss out on the original low priced items, only to have them made available at "tested and working" prices a week later with no actual testing being done. Yes I have confirmed this is happening on some level after talking with sellers.

Mandrew wrote on 2024-05-22, 20:00:

Indeed, and you have to be lucky too. I also buy job lots, go to flea markets and visit e-waste sites, it's all 100% luck. Sometimes you win the World but other times you go home with a bloody nose and out of $30.

Eh, if you just check once a month, then sure... you're leaving it entirely to chance. Knowing what to look for, understanding how people think (and in turn how they list things), expending time and energy to look diligently and being respectful to the people you're buying from goes a long way.

Mandrew wrote on 2024-05-22, 20:00:

Large auction sites always set their prices to wealthy countries with more disposable income and that creates those inflated prices.

You find the same with any global market.
You can get Australian cheese in much of Asia.
It costs about the same +shipping as in Australia though.
Most new computer parts are about the same price too.

Most "developing" nations effectively have 2 obvious markets. The local market where goods are produced entirely within the country and, to a westerner are stunningly cheap, and the global market where prices are about the same give or take a bit for factors like shipping, currency fluctuations, and differences in operating costs.

Just purchased a brand new, still in OEM Box/Package Socket 939 Opteron 156 - 3.0Ghz. Its flying around the world to me in the mail right now. I'm freaking out... 😳 I hope it survives the journey!!

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-05-22, 20:13:

Took delivery of this AGP Sapphire Radeon 3850 HD this week. Really excited for this card, since it's the fastest 8x AGP card I know of.

Planning to use this in my next iteration of an "all-in-one" Pentium 4 retro build. My previous build tops out at early 2000s XP. With this card, I'm hoping to include Vista and possibly Windows 7, and extend the useful gaming range into the late 2000s.

Saphhire Radeon HD 3850.jpg

The problem with running the 3850 on a P4 machine is that even a GeForce FX5950U is CPU limited until at least 3.2-3.3Ghz on a Core 2 X6800.

I'm about to test an even faster system with a 5950U. The last required part arrived today.

So you brought the boxed ATOP? 😁

CPU bound games or pushing really high fps, probably not in scope.

I think the wide coverage system with the HD3850 is cool. However keeping reasonably potent W98 gpu alongside is tricky needing something like a PCI R9100 as a secondary vga.

myne wrote on 2024-05-22, 23:21:

You find the same with any global market. You can get Australian cheese in much of Asia. It costs about the same +shipping as in […]
Show full quote

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-05-22, 19:23:

Large auction sites always set their prices to wealthy countries with more disposable income and that creates those inflated prices.

You find the same with any global market.
You can get Australian cheese in much of Asia.
It costs about the same +shipping as in Australia though.
Most new computer parts are about the same price too.

Most "developing" nations effectively have 2 obvious markets. The local market where goods are produced entirely within the country and, to a westerner are stunningly cheap, and the global market where prices are about the same give or take a bit for factors like shipping, currency fluctuations, and differences in operating costs.

Just FYI, that wasn't me who said that. Your quote has the wrong name in it. 😉

Ah bugger. Wish the replies weren't on a different screen on mobile!

cyclone3d wrote on 2024-05-22, 23:24:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-05-22, 20:13:

Took delivery of this AGP Sapphire Radeon 3850 HD this week. Really excited for this card, since it's the fastest 8x AGP card I know of.

Planning to use this in my next iteration of an "all-in-one" Pentium 4 retro build. My previous build tops out at early 2000s XP. With this card, I'm hoping to include Vista and possibly Windows 7, and extend the useful gaming range into the late 2000s.

Saphhire Radeon HD 3850.jpg

The problem with running the 3850 on a P4 machine is that even a GeForce FX5950U is CPU limited until at least 3.2-3.3Ghz on a Core 2 X6800.

Oh, I definitely think I'm going to hit a performance barrier. There is only so much a 2006 CPU can do.

Down the road I may try modding the motherboard I'm using, since it's allegedly moddable to enable Core 2 support. But that will be a future project.

Hanamichi wrote on 2024-05-22, 23:54:

I think the wide coverage system with the HD3850 is cool. However keeping reasonably potent W98 gpu alongside is tricky needing something like a PCI R9100 as a secondary vga.

I do have a few PCI cards (including Voodoo3 and FX5500) as a secondary GPU for Win9x and DOS support. Also thinking of tossing in a Voodoo2 and PowerVR for good measure. 😁

They'll be lots of testing to do to see how feasible this system is.

What could these be for?

Bought this for a very reasonable / great price.