dexvx wrote:So why does the Quadros (and FireGL) go for a fraction of the consumer grade items? They should technically be rarer because I would image their production numbers to be much smaller than the consumer versions.
You see more of them around because they were in workstations in medium to large size businesses. When they are done with them, they often go to recycling centers, some of which onsell components like you see on those large electronic recyclers pages on eBay and on the net.
Consumer goods just get thrown out eventually, not many people keep their old personal PCs. They just go into the rubbish or collected by the local council (or country equivalent) to be recycled normally.
The people who do keep them either enjoy PCs or just forgot they had them. The former are more likely to research their value and sell them at a price they feel is appropriate. They are often selling to us fellow computing/retro computing enthusiasts and collectors. With the workstation cards, these businesses get them in such large quantities at a time and stock costs money to hold, it is in their best interests to sell them as fast as they can which often means lower prices.
They also need to consider the market they are mainly targetting -- not retro computer lovers but other businesses that need to replace broken parts in their current hardware. They have to take into consideration that spares need to be sold at a price that makes it worth buying a spare from them as opposed to just replacing the entire system. The exception to this rule is industrial equipment that is used in, well, industrial CNC machines and other such fun items. They are VERY expensive to replace, so they know they can sell those motherboards for $500-$800 each for a Pentium II/III/4 era board. It may not sell quickly, but someone will pay it eventually. That's because those machines are designed to work with very specific hardware, often down to the board revision.
So were there less made? Probably. But more "survived" because of the environment they came from. 😀