Don't know who buys at those prices. A few months ago prices for i5-2500/K were around 20-30€. i7-2600/K for 40-70€. 3rd gen from 30 to 100€ - 3470 to 3770 on eBay.de.

kixs wrote:

Don't know who buys at those prices. A few months ago prices for i5-2500/K were around 20-30€. i7-2600/K for 40-70€. 3rd gen from 30 to 100€ - 3470 to 3770 on eBay.de.

Yes that is what I would have expected. This should be the correct price/speed ratio if we also look at modern processors. After more searching on eBay I did find as low as $50. Which is still more than I would like to pay for a 3rd gen Intel Core i5.

Its simple, Intel has been sitting on its ass for almost 10 years due to no competition from pathetic AMD offerings (Bulldozer etc).
8 year old i5 2500 3.3-3.7 GHz 4 core CPU works just as well as brand new ~$100 G4560 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XMDB9gO-iU, or heavily OC i5 2500K dukes it out with $130 i3-8100 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMp72mI426s and ~$130 Ryzen 3s overclocked to 4GHz. Now add the fact DDR4 prices have been insane while DDR3 is almost free in comparison and you have the reason. New ram finally started getting cheap again, and the difference is now less than x2, but was up to x3-4 not so long ago.

Upgrading to new parts only starts making sense if you are willing to spend >=$200 for 8/16 core CPU, >$100 new motherboard and >=$100 new ram.

In the past year I upgraded seven systems from i5-2500K and i3-3220 to i5-3550. Not that much of an upgrade I know, but just for the sake of uniformity and final upgrade path. Average second hand price for the i5-3550s was around Euro 45,-. But some patience was required.
I am planning to sell the i5-2500Ks/i3-3220s, but haven't made the time to put up an ad yet...

Also had a search out for a particular Z68 motherboard, but these do not show up for sale much...

rasz_pl wrote:

Its simple, Intel has been sitting on its ass for almost 10 years due to no competition from pathetic AMD offerings (Bulldozer etc).

Some young people are at the office now, and normally I would expect some of them to complain when using computers from 7 to 8 years old for CAD. Not so. Seems they manage fine with it.

8GB sticks of DDR3 RAM were expensive some months ago at least. Seemed to me like it had not dropped in price at all.
It is just SSD drives that have become much cheaper per GB past years.

I'm seeing some i5 3rd gen on eBay right now for about $35.
i5-3570

$35 + shipping - 2 available
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-i5-3570-3 … or/372637311528

$38.88 shipped - 8 available
https://www.ebay.com/itm/INTEL-CORE-I5-3570-S … ED/223461426193

For the (k) versions on ebay- I see a bunch of i5-2500k around $50 and a bunch of i5-3570ks for around $60.

Never use the defaut ebay search, it (nearly)always direct you to the more expensive items in your area first, remember that ebay earns money by comissions so they're interested in you buying the expensive items; do a customs search ordering the items from less to more expensive.

if you don't need the IGP and want a sandy bridge "i5" look at the e3 1220 also (e 1230 if you want HT), it's cheap on aliexpress
also there is the 1225 if you need IGP.

Thank you all for the help and suggestions.

Honestly I'd get a prebuilt with an i5 ivy bridge or haswell... they're often not much more than the processor itself

vladstamate wrote:

So who is buying those old CPUs to keep the prices so high?

Lots of irrational buyers out there on Ebay who will pay through their noses for a pointless CPU upgrade for their old mobos, or a replacement Z-motherboard to keep their overclocked K CPUs.

When used 4790K goes for $200 and used non-sucky Z97 mobos goes for $150, I might as well just get a brand new Ryzen 2600/B450/16GB DDR4-3000 for not much more money.

People buying $200 4790K already have premium Z motherboard and 16-32GB of hiend DDR3 ram, upgrading to Ryzen makes no financial sense to them.