Could this be the steal of the century...... ?

[Pooh]

Now before anyone rips into me about how dumb this was, please bear with me

I've been thinking about upgrading my 5960 to either a ThreadRipper or a 7960X and to cut a long story short there was a "New unopened " 7960X listed on the the Bay a few days ago that I put a bid on and won for silly money.

I know about the " If it looks too good to be true, then it probably is" mantra

However, paying for it with Paypal Credit and the Bay's guarantee of what you order is what you get I though what the hell it's worth a punt even if it's only 10-20% likely to be a genuine new 7960X. A bit of research on the seller didn't throw up any obvious red flags.

I've bought a rather tasty Asus Apex MoBo which has arrived and the CPU is supposed to arrive on Tuesday.

If it comes good I'll say what I paid for it, if not I'll shrug my shoulders, have a good whinge to the Bay and get my money back and buy a pucker one anyway.

Fingers crossed for next week. Sometime you just got to take a punt.

Annoying thing is that I've got 2 days of off site corporate stuff next week so it's going to be Thursday/Friday before I can plug whatever I get into the MoBo, assuming that it fits even the socket

I was going to try and set up a poll for a bit of fun but I can't see how to do one these days on this forum.

 

[Pooh]

£670 is hardly silly money.

It is when they're going for £1,350 and thanks for killing any suspense in the thread....

 

[Pooh]

I had a look at the 2 other 7960X Muon had mentioned

the £870 one was from Latvia - even less risk there then..

the £999 one was from someone who's account had not been used for a year and the current other items for sale were 2 sets of coloured shoe laces, Oh yes and also a nice new shiney 7980X as well now, funnily enough. No danger that ebay ID has been hacked then. I've filed a fraud alert with eBay on this one.

The user I bought mine from at least had other tech items in their history and the account was active unlike the £999 seller, and I do know that histories can be manipulated.

Like I said, a big punt , but that's the whole point of this thread......

 

[Pooh]

Love the STNG clip

 

[Pooh]

£670 is a pretty good deal for a 7960X, if they were that price retail AMD would have to knock a fair chunk off their 1950X price to be competitive. I'd have waited for it to arrive before buying a motherboard though. If they don't want to let it go for that price they'll do the whole "it must have got lost in the mail" routine.

Know what you mean, it’s all one shot in the dark. I’m going to upgrade anyway so the Mobo wasn’t a major issue. If I do decide to change my mind I can always return it.

I’ve got a Royal Mail tracking number for the cpu so we’ll see what happens next week.

 

[Pooh]

Hope you get a bargain. I rarely do but I don't take that many risks either. I hope you've got some decent cooling

Thanks

Custom loop with a 360 and 240 and a good selection of rad and case fans.

 

[Pooh]

The anticipation builds....

 

[Pooh]

When buying from eBay, CeX or other potentially dubious sources I try to remember to video record myself opening the packaging so that I have proof of what's inside.

Good idea

 

[Pooh]

Address listed in the auction is a less than stellar place in West Brom (B70 9TJ), been through there a few times. No local pick up, means it's a fake address or the person doesn't want their face being seen as they are handling fraudulently acquired goods, or possibly even stolen. You only need to look at what they have sold, and it's all fast move electronics, tools, phones etc. These sorts of accounts are all over eBay, buying products with stolen credit cards etc. then selling them on eBay, you'll actually get what you bought, but it won't be from the the most legitimate of sources.

Enjoy your new CPU.

Thanks Inspector Clouseau. Hard to tell if you're having a pop or trying to take some moral high ground.

Afraid we don't all have your local knowledge

 

[Pooh]

Neither, so no need to take offence. Merely pointing out, that it's a very easy way for people to make cash these days, the modern day of selling in the dark and dingy corner of the local pub of modern times if you will.

It's hardly your fault, as far as you know what you are buying is 100% legitimate and it, for intents and purposes it could be. As I said before, enjoy your new CPU, which is exactly what I meant.

Apologies if my reply came across a bit terse.

 

[Pooh]

Erm, nearly no one puts local pickup on ebay. You have any idea how much of a pain that is? Also easy to get scammed if you are the seller.

It s hlarious that this thread even exists. Ebay isn't full of scammers and the sale price here isn't unusual.

Hi muon - have a look at post 7...

 

[Pooh]

Let’s try to keep this thread on topic please guys.

 

[Pooh]

Thanks.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow

 

[Pooh]

Did it arrive mate?

Sorry for the late post, it's been a long day, just got back to the hotel.

So what's the old saying... If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and goes quack, it's probably a duck.

Initial impressions, it looks like a duck...

Let's see if it walks like a duck and goes quack

I've also ordered a Samsung 1TB 970 EVO M.2 from OverClockers which is due to arrive tomorrow. It's frustrating as I won't be able to start ripping systems apart until Thursday evening at the earliest. I'll take my existing Samsung 950 512GB M.2 and make that my scratch disk for photo/video work.

Here's the initial pics...

If it's a ringer, it's a good one....

Plan is to ( assuming it goes quack ) get it overclocked and stable, look at the temps and then possible delid if it's bad, decent paste, and see how that affects the temps. incremental steps....

 

[Pooh]

It lives......

 

[Pooh]

Thanks Guys

Looking forward to getting it tuned in.

I did manage to get it fired into Windows last night using my C Drive from the old motherboard. bit ugly but it got there eventually.

Going to do a fresh install tonight and see where it goes from there.

I've got a 240 and 360 rad in a custom loop. I'm guessing though that delidding might be necessary somewhere down the line

 

[Pooh]

last piece of the jigsaw arrived.

 

[Pooh]

Now managed to get most of the software installed and starting to mess about with clocking the beast.

Bit of a different process and more options from when i clocked my 5960.

Initially clocking easily up to 4.4, gets to 4.5 with bit more power but temps start to get high.

Starting to mess about with per core overclocking so..

2 cores up to 4.7
4 cores up to 4.6
8 cores up to 4.5
16 cores up to 4.4

Seems to be relatively stable and not too toasty. long way to go with getting it dialled in. I need to do some more research.

 

[Pooh]

Make sure you get that straight back on the bay advertised as a 70ghz cpu...

Might try that approach with the 5960

8 X 4.5 GHz = 36 GHz

 

[Pooh]

Getting a bit too toasty with Handbrake at 4.4.

Spoiler: image