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would you ever buy a second hand cpu?

adamknox

adamknox

adamknox

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11 Jun 2009
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Bridgwater, Somerset, UK
Im in the market for an i7 920 My budget was around £200, but my friend suggested getting a 2nd hand one off of an auction site. I had never really thought about it before but he said there just as good as a new one + i can use the extra i save on an even better mobo + ram. My whole budget for a mobo+cpu was around £400. So would you even concider it?

P.s im not price checking etc I'm asking what are the chances it could be broken/brake in 2-3 months time.
 
for that budget get an 860 and a cheap LGA1156 mobo instead plus it'll be new

IMO only reasons to buy a used CPU is if it's a cheap extreme edition or a cheap Q6xxx
 
HW91 said:
for that budget get an 860 and a cheap LGA1156 mobo instead plus it'll be new

IMO only reasons to buy a used CPU is if it's a cheap extreme edition or a cheap Q6xxx
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I found a Intel Core i7 920, 2.66 GHz Nehalem Quad core,thats been used around 2-3 months (they have recipt) never overclocked and they upgraded to an extreme (guess they cant overclock) at around £130 with an hour to go. eve if it went upto £150 im saving like £50 on it. that can get a better mobo! getting the 860 is more money >< and im only gunna overclock it to 4Ghz anyways :(
 
If you can get one significantly cheaper than new than yes I'd go for a 2nd user CPU. Make sure you don't get carried away with bidding, set a limit, 60% of the new price maybe?

Andi.
 
cpu is a prime item to buy 2nd hand,

as long as it works when you get it its not very likley to go wrong (the same with memory)
 
I would say that 90% of the CPUs i have purchaed have been 2nd hand. I can only think of 3 that i got new, an E6400 when the Core2 chips first come out, an E5300 and then an i5 750 last year.

Never had an issue with used CPUS, as sais, they either work or they dont :p
 
On the auction sites can ask the sellers questions like what the cpu VID is, if they have overclocked (they wont always tell you in the description) & what the settings were. This will give you a good idea of what the cpu will be capable of and if it has been abused or if the seller has a great cpu & doesnt know it. I did this with my last cpu (E8600) got one with a really low VID (took about 2 weeks of looking) & a week later had it at 4.5GHz (with voltage within intel specs) which it happily ran at until I sold it a year & half later for more than I payed for it as I advertised it for what it really was.
 
Someone said:
On the auction sites can ask the sellers questions like what the cpu VID is, if they have overclocked (they wont always tell you in the description) & what the settings were. This will give you a good idea of what the cpu will be capable of and if it has been abused or if the seller has a great cpu & doesnt know it. I did this with my last cpu (E8600) got one with a really low VID (took about 2 weeks of looking) & a week later had it at 4.5GHz (with voltage within intel specs) which it happily ran at until I sold it a year & half later for more than I payed for it as I advertised it for what it really was.
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This. I bought my E8400 from an auction site and the seller really didn't have a clue about it. I guided them through finding the vid and core temp etc, ended up winning it for £79.99. Used it for a year @ 3.6 undervolted running passive (:)) and sold it for £85 no so long ago!
 
Before buying it just ask the seller what sort of life the chip has had. Has it been overclocked and if so how high did it go, was it used for folding, encoding, gaming?
 
I have and will continue to, cpus rarely break and some bargains can be had. If the previous owner was an overclocker you also get the bonus of knowing the chips ability
 
To be honest, nobody ever keeps a CPU long enough for it to approach the end of its lifespan. They design them to last 15+ years of use, if overclocking shortens that to a 10 year life, it's still longer than you'd end up keeping it for.

2nd hand CPU's are really not a problem. As said already, you get to see before you buy how well or how badly they clock.
 
adamknox said:
I found a Intel Core i7 920, 2.66 GHz Nehalem Quad core,thats been used around 2-3 months (they have recipt) never overclocked and they upgraded to an extreme (guess they cant overclock) at around £130 with an hour to go. eve if it went upto £150 im saving like £50 on it. that can get a better mobo! getting the 860 is more money >< and im only gunna overclock it to 4Ghz anyways :(
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if you can get it for £150 then its defiantly worth it.

that way u get a better platform, tripple channel ram, etc, saving £60-70 over the 860 means it more than makes up for the more expensive motherboard.

it also gives u the option for SLI or Crossfire, which the cheaper 1156 boards dont
 
i'd buy one from the ocuk members market on these forums sure because you can look at the persons post history to find out how much voltae they had through the chip.

random auction site seller = no way they could have fried that sucker and you would have no proof you didnt kill it
 
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