I've only overpaid one time. After I got a cheap Radeon 9700Pro cheap, around $20 as tested and working and ended up heavily artifacting, I sent it back and ended up losing money on it. I didn't know at the time that this seller has a reputation for dishonesty. Then out of spite I ordered a 9800 Pro off of ebay from Canada for $40 and by the time I got my hands on it, it was $60. Two weeks later I found one locally from a seller with good reputation for $25.

I don't like going over ~$30 shipping included, but generally keep it around $20. These are 15+ years old hardware, you never know how much you have to spend on them and how much life is left in them.

I got most of my parts about 3 - 6 years ago, and prices these days have gone beyond what I consider reasonable. Even Riva128 is overpriced now.

3dfx stuff and modern parts are just completely ridiculous, even a LGA1151 Celeron sells used for the same price I bought it new years ago. Graphics cards? I bought my Radeon R9 380 for $180 in 2015, and can probably sell it for no less right now. Laughably ridiculous.

I generally hate overpaying, and typically wait on a good deal unless the item is rare and unlikely to be found at reasonable prices. I did overpay for a Matrox M3D last year, but good luck finding one for under $100.

One of the things I found really captivating about getting old hardware was the ability to build PCs for a few bucks (or even for free!) that would have been obscenely expensive back then. It's not the same feeling if they are as expensive as building a modern rig now. Luckily I have pretty much everything I ever wanted (could do with some more varied AT cases though), so nowadays my purchases are few and far between.

Whether I "overpay" or not is honestly difficult to know, as the prices vary so wildly from seller to seller that I find it almost impossible to determine what would be the "market price". Lately I have noticed that many sellers seem to take the higher price at which an item has sold instead of using an average or "most common" value.

The only cases where I would pay a premium would be modern replicas of old rare hardware (mostly because I enjoy supporting the hard work of the community members behind these projects) or if I wanted a rare collector's item (I'm not really a collector though, so this doesn't really apply to me). But something like a used, beaten up Voodoo2 isn't either rare or special enough to me that I would pay more than $30 or $40 for it. With the current prices, I would rather let those rot in the sellers hands.

Meatball wrote on 2022-01-17, 21:52:

I noticed when I read comments around the forum, a lot of people are getting fabulous deals on their purchases. Everyone is finding hardware cheap... couple of euros for Vortex 2... $10 for a Voodoo2... I exaggerate, but the comments do usually include "I found it cheap."

Mind you, for everyone who got card x for $10 there are probably 10 others who got it for $50, it's just that the latter is not worth posting about it.

Meatball wrote on 2022-01-17, 21:52:

Do you have a line that you won't cross?

Mine is simply "a bit more expensive that what I consider fair".
It doesn't matter if it's rare or highly desirable, if I believe it should cost 50 then I won't go higher that 60-70 even if it currently sells for 150.
This goes the other way too, if it's my first pc and I am willing to pay 150 to have it again, it won't matter if it currently sells for 50.

I paid £20 for a 12 MB Diamond Monster Voodoo2 about 10 years ago off some random website where as the other one only cost £4.20 on ebay.
I knew it wasn't a good deal but was fairly new to the hobby and didn't know how often this exact card showed up. I also figured it would only go up in price.

I'm at the point now where builds are more for the fun then actually "needing" them so don't mind putting in the time to watch how much an item goes for, then getting said item for about the same price.

Although I do need a new graphics card, but no way am I paying £200 starting price for something decent. the few game's that require that I'm just not playing for next year or so I guess

How you guys get the money in the first place?

Muz wrote on 2022-01-18, 09:32:

How you guys get the money in the first place?

I invented the molex connector.

cyclone3d wrote on 2022-01-18, 03:35:

I only "overpay" for things I have been looking for for a long time that very rarely, if ever, pop up for sale.

That.

In the end it's all about how much I want something vs what I have to pay to get it.

As a rule I'm a bottom-feeding cheapskate who prides himself on getting stuff well below the going rate, usually by buying up big unsorted lots or finding hardware in unusual places. But sometimes I really, really want something and can't get it that way, so I pay full price for it, or (part) exchange other things of significant value. I did that for my GUS and MT-32, and sooner or later I see myself doing it for a working NexGen setup (unless I get really lucky like I haven't for the past 20 years).

As for what is worth a big spend and how much is "too much", that's a purely personal calculation.

I have not overpaid much, but there have been few cases where I have spent more than I wanted for something I will never see again, such as a NexGen mobo+CPU, in the end it was I think 160€ which is not really bad compared to other numbers I have seen... but that particular auction started at just 10 cents ! 🤣

Hell no.

I viewed anything that I snag as worthless when I started about 20 years ago and hope that when/if I got bored the scrap value would cover the cost of recycling the CRT monitors I have. Funny how prices have risen and I don't have to worry about that anymore.

Generally I collect at the bottom of the value curve which keeps moving as time goes by. Once in a while I might pay a few bucks for something I really wanted and it would be way under ebay value. Luckily I collect in a few areas and deals can still be found.

Imho I'd agree on paying reasonable prices as already said but not some no sense prices seen sometimes because that would remind me immediately that we are talking about components often destined to break sooner or later and often already built cheap in their times. Maybe they have capacitors than can be replaced but once replaced the value of the components should obviously change and not in better and not always results in the best work so eletronic components shouldn't have too high prices. I know some are rare, I know "many" (imho not that many) search for their passion and collection but what make me think is when people buy to sell and sell to someone that buy to sell again and so on. That increase price of components often sold as not even tested. Back to the topic, I usually think that I can pay until a certain point for a wanted components but once I feel the price has not reason to be that high I will not buy it even if it's the most wanted component and prefer to keep the hardware I already have.

Muz wrote on 2022-01-18, 09:32:

How you guys get the money in the first place?

Generally we work for a living and earn enough to have some free cash to throw at hobbies and such.

I'm also willing to take a shot at "For Parts or Repair" auctions and sales, its how I got my G4 Ti 4600 and Dell Latitude 630D lappy, you can find some hard to get stuff at such auctions if you are wiling to have a crack at repairing it. The Ti I bought simply needed new paste and cooler.

Muz wrote on 2022-01-18, 09:32:

How you guys get the money in the first place?

It just appears in my bank account every so often 😀

debs3759 wrote on 2022-01-18, 10:43:

Muz wrote on 2022-01-18, 09:32:

How you guys get the money in the first place?

It just appears in my bank account every so often 😀

Usually twice a month 🤣

What usually stops me from going overboard is asking “What am I going to do with this part?” Anything earlier than late Pentium is easy for me to ignore. Or AGP video cards at their twilight. Occasionally the process fails, though. I have a Voodoo4 4500 with which I have no plans, but I don’t want to sell it because I will probably regret it.

Meatball wrote on 2022-01-18, 10:47:

What usually stops me from going overboard is asking “What am I going to do with this part?” Anything earlier than late Pentium is easy for me to ignore. Or AGP video cards at their twilight. Occasionally the process fails, though. I have a Voodoo4 4500 with which I have no plans, but I don’t want to sell it because I will probably regret it.

The V4 4500 is rather rare to see on eBay or other auction sites, might be worth keeping hold of it.

Another interesting topic is re-selling items overpaid or acquired on the cheap side because hey, we know this hobby and the going price!
But yeah I won't start with that since it's a discussion that can easily be derailed and probably off-topic as well.

I am still early in with this hobby, so i buy everything I once desired but had no money, stuff i never had in general and stuff I did have, but my mid life crisis is near and i want to feel young again 😁 I wait for a good deal, sometimes buy "untested" stuff on ebay and most of the time they work. I also buy used old pcs and take what I need out of them. But hell on I'm not paying what the average ebay prices are.

I got back into old systems two years ago. I still had some 90s hardware in the attic and it was time to check this stuff out and find some things I always wanted to have. Since I've been pretty late to the party, I had to pay higher prices to get my hands on some of the nicer stuff. I'm not very patient and my personal limits went up over time.

I now have a box of 90s graphics and sound cards, a few CRTs (some for 10€ locally, others for free) and seven to eight running systems from 486 to Pentium III 1400. The most expensive purchases were a really nice MT-32 for 250€, an unused Model M from '95 for 90€, a pair of Voodoo 2s (12MB) for almost 200€ and a tricked out Orpheus (worth every Cent, great job, guys). I don't feel like I've paid too much, but some of this stuff was pretty expensive.

On the other side, some of the hardware I now own went for way under current market price. Either because of a bad description or because I found the offer right after they put it up. Especially PCI graphics cards, a Guillemot Maxi Sound 64, a Sound Canvas SC-88, a lot of AMD K6-2+ (4x 550MHz) and a DX2-66 system for 100€ with a ATI Mach 32 and a Terratec EWS64 inside a beautiful desktop case.

So I might have over-paid for some things, but all in all I feel pretty happy about my collection. Those few hundred Euros brought me a great time of rediscovery full of nostalgia.

chrismes wrote on 2022-01-18, 14:58:

I'm not very patient and my personal limits went up over time.

I had to do this with boxed PC games. My price range went from $40-$60 to well north of $100 now. I'm glad I picked up Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain when I did several moons ago (for example), but I'm still kicking myself for selling Shadowman and Nightmare Creatures to this day.