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Retro Hardware Prices... are NUTS!

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Reply 40 of 106, by cyclone3d

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oeuvre wrote:

I wonder how many here are regretting not stocking up on Pentium 4s.

I'd wager about 0.

Pentium 4 CPUs can be had for close to nothing even on eBay. I've managed to acquire more P4 CPUs than I can shake a stick at and now have the problem of actually being able to sell them when I decide to thin out what I have. I'm actually thinking about making a bunch of keychains and trying to sell them on Etsy or something.

If you want say.. 30-100 or more Pentium 4 CPUs, just buy a large lot of "scrap" CPUs on eBay. You'll end up with just about every model of S478 CPU there ever was, plus some LGA775 and some S423 CPUs. I did end up buying a few higher end P4 CPUs separately that I specifically wanted, but still only spent about $5 a piece shipped for those.

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Reply 41 of 106, by squiggly

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badmojo wrote:

Yay, this again.

I honestly don't mind a bit of ebay spectator sport...the problem with that thread is it was for "outrageous prices on eBay" which led to fights about whether something was actually overpriced or not.

Can we just have a "funny/interesting/rare retro PC gear on ebay thread"?

Reply 42 of 106, by appiah4

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oeuvre wrote:

I wonder how many here are regretting not stocking up on Athlon XPs.

Fixed that for you 😉

Last edited by appiah4 on 2018-04-09, 21:10. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 44 of 106, by vvbee

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The stuff isn't even that expensive if you're an average employed joe. A video card that used to be $10 and is $50 today, chances are you can still afford it. If you literally need to stock up on hundreds of them then it adds up.

Reply 45 of 106, by oeuvre

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cyclone3d wrote:
I'd wager about 0. […]
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oeuvre wrote:

I wonder how many here are regretting not stocking up on Pentium 4s.

I'd wager about 0.

Pentium 4 CPUs can be had for close to nothing even on eBay. I've managed to acquire more P4 CPUs than I can shake a stick at and now have the problem of actually being able to sell them when I decide to thin out what I have. I'm actually thinking about making a bunch of keychains and trying to sell them on Etsy or something.

If you want say.. 30-100 or more Pentium 4 CPUs, just buy a large lot of "scrap" CPUs on eBay. You'll end up with just about every model of S478 CPU there ever was, plus some LGA775 and some S423 CPUs. I did end up buying a few higher end P4 CPUs separately that I specifically wanted, but still only spent about $5 a piece shipped for those.

I was being sarcastic. 😜

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Reply 46 of 106, by The Serpent Rider

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I wonder how many here are regretting not stocking up on Pentium 4s.

I certainly won't regret that with stocked Athlon XP/64.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 47 of 106, by Turboman

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Just my 2 cents on the Voodoo5 5500, I have noticed there is one user that bids on almost every single 5500 on ebay, the user has 1531 feedback and when you look at the bid history there he is on literally every singe one. Looking at the completed listings that user has won like 4 of them, it's almost like he is mega hoarding or trying real hard to keep the price up.

Reply 48 of 106, by dr_st

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oeuvre wrote:

I wonder how many here are regretting not stocking up on Pentium 4s.

Because a dozen of office heaters is not enough? 😀

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Reply 49 of 106, by tayyare

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appiah4 wrote:

A hobby about owning scarce items is becoming more expensive by the day. You heard it here first. News at 11.

Nicely put, sir! 🤣

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Reply 50 of 106, by 133MHz

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Everything has become more expensive nowadays, even current hardware hasn't been depreciating as fast as it used to. I've noticed last-gen hardware still commands relatively high prices where I live, and particularly for the desktop stuff there's not much of it on the second hand market. I believe this is caused by laptops outselling desktops and the slowing down of perfomance improvements, resulting in people buying less new stuff and keeping what they have running for longer. For me it has been quite boring since modern is expensive, vintage is expensive and in-between is either crap or scarce (and thus also expensive).

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Reply 51 of 106, by sf78

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133MHz wrote:

Everything has become more expensive nowadays, even current hardware hasn't been depreciating as fast as it used to.

Yes, right on the money! I checked my current setup prices now that you mentioned it and everything is actually more expensive than it was last May when I build it! 😵

Reply 52 of 106, by appiah4

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sf78 wrote:
133MHz wrote:

Everything has become more expensive nowadays, even current hardware hasn't been depreciating as fast as it used to.

Yes, right on the money! I checked my current setup prices now that you mentioned it and everything is actually more expensive than it was last May when I build it! 😵

This has more to do with cartelization of memory producers and stupidly high GPU demand due to the insane boom in crypto mining though.. Not really an indication of how things went or will go..

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Reply 54 of 106, by Tetrium

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nforce4max wrote:

This is why I go through the trouble of hoarding in the first place, do it on the cheap when no one gives a rat's ass or thinks you are insane and profit later by not having to pay out the rear later. I wonder how many here are regretting not stocking up on 3DFX cards..

Not me 🤣

It's exactly as you described, people called me nuts for collecting all this junk.
I didn't stock up as many 3DFX cards as I could, but I have no use for 100+ 3DFX cards and trading for profits was never an intended goal of mine, nor was it expected to be a realistic possibility to me.

I've been in awe about retro prices for a good number of years now and I think we should kinda expect that chances are good that prices will go up for parts like S3 Virge 4MB costing €30 or more (€30 being considered a very good deal).

I do think prices are inflated, not only by hyping but also by scrupulous traders who buy and sell by the ton and don't know anything about the components they sell, except the price tag. I'm talking about mass hoarding of parts with the intend of selling them down the line and being patient enough to keep things in storage for a very long time (think 20 years or longer). Obviously this would create an artificial scarcity, which by definition calls for inflated pricing of parts which would otherwise be a lot cheaper.

That's a possible future, but I've seen lots of crazy stuff so who knows 🤣!

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Reply 55 of 106, by Qjimbo

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It's brought about a change in attitude as well. In Vancouver there's a store called FreeGeek and a couple of years ago I went there and they let me rumage through all the AGP cards processors etc. - I got some really cheap decent old graphics cards. Next time I went there I was told they no longer allow this, because people were abusing it - I can only assume people were going in and buying the good stuff just to resell. This sort of thing is ruining collecting for people who actually care about the hobby.

It's really unfortunate. When I do resell things it's just stuff I genuinely don't have a use for, and start at a very low bid price to give everyone a fair chance.

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Reply 56 of 106, by bjwil1991

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I get lucky most of the time when searching for old hardware either on eBay, forums, or thrift stores. I was fortunate to get a fully functional 486 for $17 (tower, keyboard, and mouse) last year, and it still works to this day. The two Commodore 64 systems I have were pure lucks (bidded until the auction was over), and some add-on cards (GPU, Sound, etc) were either found locally at thrift stores and purchased them, got 2 years ago from a 386/486 machine and still works (the sound card, and I should've taken the system itself) for free, or online, such as eBay and forums (either free or pay).

Other times were not so lucky (either outbid, broken, or missed by a mile), but, I have 2 iMacs to work with in my collection:
$29.99 fixer upper iMac G3/600 Graphite with a 200GB HDD (128GB limit set), 768MB RAM over 256MB RAM, matching keyboard, and 3-button + scrolling wheel mouse
$9.99 iMac G4/800 (no repairs needed, but I purchased a USB wireless card that's supported), and well worth the $9.99

Had a $19.99 PowerMac G3/400 that never seemed to turn on at all that I took the HDD, ODD, ZIP drive, and other stuff + a few other systems that need repairs or not, but too pricey (bought anyway).

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Reply 57 of 106, by gdjacobs

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I'm continuing to have luck with recycle/dumpster pulls. *knock on wood* Until that dries up, I'm not terribly worried.

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Reply 58 of 106, by Qjimbo

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gdjacobs wrote:

I'm continuing to have luck with recycle/dumpster pulls. *knock on wood* Until that dries up, I'm not terribly worried.

Ditto. It highlights how stupid things have gotten though. I can pull a graphics card out of an old dumped PC that would be $50-$100 on ebay. There needs to be a middle ground between free and expensive that more people have access to. I guess there's Electromyne but they're based out of Europe which means higher shipping costs.

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Reply 59 of 106, by Keatah

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I don't think I'll ever be nostalgic about P4 machines. It's a hot-heavy-expensive platform I have no desire to ever revisit. And machines after that are commodity appliances it seems - whether or not any given iteration is plentiful at present.

My interest seems to have stopped at a fast P-III, and my old 486 Dx2/50. That's likely to be all I need to keep me interested. Aside from cycling through contemporary hardware from time to time.

I think that as we move more into the future, the hardware will become more generic and abstracted away. And the software will have nostalgic value.

Last edited by Keatah on 2018-04-13, 21:39. Edited 1 time in total.