How can I determine a fair price to sell my computer?

[Agent Ardalan]

Hello.

I'm planning to sell my pc. I'm not sure how much I should shave off the original price. The other problem is that most of the parts are no longer in production so I'm not sure how I can find the price for a new part to subtracts from it and use it for the price I want to list it as.

What is the best approach?

Here are my specs:
Motherboard: Gigabyte g1 gaming z97 blackedition
CPU: intel core i7 4790k
Ram: ddr3 2*8gb (g.skill trident I think)
vga: gigabyte windforce gtx 760 2GB
Monitor: some 1440x900 old Samsung lcd. I don't even remember the dimensions. 17 inches maybe?
Case: Cougar x7

 

[Herc08]

The best way? Go on eBay and Craigslist and see what those parts are worth used. Then add up those prices. You usually will come up with a price less than the sum you just did. Then determine, if you have no idea who the seller was (you in this case) will you pay this amount for it.

Looking at your build, I would pay probably $400-500 for everything including the monitor, but you do have people who may try to lowball you.

 

[g-unit1111]

The best way? Go on eBay and Craigslist and see what those parts are worth used. Then add up those prices. You usually will come up with a price less than the sum you just did. Then determine, if you have no idea who the seller was (you in this case) will you pay this amount for it.

Looking at your build, I would pay probably $400-500 for everything including the monitor, but you do have people who may try to lowball you.

That really isn't the best way because market demand doesn't take into account depreciation from used items. For instance the RX-480 and RX-580 are stupidly high right now because of a bitcoin variant that's making heavy use of the 480/580 in coin mining procedures. The 7900 series are also high in demand for that same reason. Sometimes you're better off stripping the rig of the parts and selling them individually than you are selling the rig as a whole. I've had much better luck that way than I did by selling entire systems.

 

[Herc08]

The best way? Go on eBay and Craigslist and see what those parts are worth used. Then add up those prices. You usually will come up with a price less than the sum you just did. Then determine, if you have no idea who the seller was (you in this case) will you pay this amount for it.

Looking at your build, I would pay probably $400-500 for everything including the monitor, but you do have people who may try to lowball you.

That really isn't the best way because market demand doesn't take into account depreciation from used items. For instance the RX-480 and RX-580 are stupidly high right now because of a bitcoin variant that's making heavy use of the 480/580 in coin mining procedures. The 7900 series are also high in demand for that same reason. Sometimes you're better off stripping the rig of the parts and selling them individually than you are selling the rig as a whole. I've had much better luck that way than I did by selling entire systems.

While this is true, I was just speaking in general. However, I'm sure if you go on eBay those AMD cards will reflect a higher price than the MSRP.

 

[Agent Ardalan]

The best way? Go on eBay and Craigslist and see what those parts are worth used. Then add up those prices. You usually will come up with a price less than the sum you just did. Then determine, if you have no idea who the seller was (you in this case) will you pay this amount for it.

Looking at your build, I would pay probably $400-500 for everything including the monitor, but you do have people who may try to lowball you.

I'm not quite sure what you mean.
What sum are you referring to.

I did however check ebay and the cpu alone goes for $200 so does the motherboard.

 

[Herc08]

The best way? Go on eBay and Craigslist and see what those parts are worth used. Then add up those prices. You usually will come up with a price less than the sum you just did. Then determine, if you have no idea who the seller was (you in this case) will you pay this amount for it.

Looking at your build, I would pay probably $400-500 for everything including the monitor, but you do have people who may try to lowball you.

I'm not quite sure what you mean.
What sum are you referring to.

I did however check ebay and the cpu alone goes for $200 so does the motherboard.

Add up all the prices for each part you find on eBay. Try to get some sort of average between the highest and lowest. Then you have your total price. However, you wouldn't sell it for that total. For example, if everything came up to 583, you probably will sell it for 550, or even 500.

Again, you have to think like a buyer..if you did not know the situation, how much would you pay for it? You have to be honest with yourself. This is probably the hardest part, because you know you want the most money, but a buyer wants the best parts for the cheapest price.

 

[Karadjgne]

Yes, but that's individual parts, which anyone can buy. If selling as a complete pc, you'll end up with a much smaller amount of interested buyers, because they have to settle for what you have. This generally brings full pc prices down by comparison to the same build using individual parts. It's why ppl will buy bare-bones or combo kits.

$500 would be my max bid used, I'd be trying for $300 at most. Craigslist would be a better option as you could get away with $700+ and still get offers.

 

[g-unit1111]

Yes, but that's individual parts, which anyone can buy. If selling as a complete pc, you'll end up with a much smaller amount of interested buyers, because they have to settle for what you have. This generally brings full pc prices down by comparison to the same build using individual parts. It's why ppl will buy bare-bones or combo kits.

$500 would be my max bid used, I'd be trying for $300 at most. Craigslist would be a better option as you could get away with $700+ and still get offers.

I agree. You can figure it out using accounting methods (straight depreciation, etc) and you can do it that way, but you will really come out in the end selling your system for around or less than 1/2 of what it is worth.

 

[Agent Ardalan]

Seeing the amount of money I'll be getting back from selling this pc, I have reconsidered my decision to sell it. It's worth much more to me than 500 dollars.

 

[Karadjgne]

And that right there is everything. "it's worth much more to me...". Sentiment is a fine, worthy quality to have, but it's absolutely meaningless when it comes to buying/selling/dealing with strangers. I've got an old, very old! 3dfx Voodoo 2 16Mb AGP card that still works (yes I even have the full set of functional drivers for it too) and I loved that card. It was an amazing gpu for its time, and brings back some serious memories. To me, it's worth a lot of money if I was to sell it, and I mean a LOT. To most anyone else on ebay looking for an AGP card, it's worth $20, $30 if I'm lucky. So it's still sitting in my old P4 Dell. I totally understand you valuing your pc at a high price, but reality does not give a rats patoot about your feelings. It's worth $500. Next year it'll be worth less and in 3 years time the amount of buyers who'll pay even $400 starts going down drastically, because you'll be asking top dollar for an almost worthless at gaming, gpu.