[SOLVED] How much should I sell my PC for?

[Hendrick H]

Hi guys,

I built my own PC in mid December 2017, and I am now looking to sell it as I rarely have time to use it, especially because I can only access my work environment via my work laptop.

I haven't been keeping eye on how PC components depreciate over time, and I have also tried to look for the price of the components in 2021, but can't seem to find all of them - so I would appreciate it a lot if you could give me some feedback on this.

I have managed to dig through my emails and figured out how much the PC cost me in total in December 2017:

Component	Name	Price
Graphics card	Gigabyte Radeon RX 580 8GB Aorus Graphics Card	£282.00​
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 1700 65 W 8/16 Core 3.7 GHz 4 MB CPU - Black	£229.99​
Memory	Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3000C15 Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2x8 GB) DDR4 3000 MHz C15 XMP 2.0 High Performance Desktop Memory Kit - Black	£187.46​
Motherboard	MSI Gaming AMD Ryzen B350 DDR4 VR Ready HDMI USB 3 ATX Motherboard (B350 GAMING PRO CARBON)	£109.98​
Case	Fractal Design Define R5 Blackout Edition Atx/Micro-Atx/Mini-Itx Case with Window for PC - Black	£98.54​
SSD	Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB 2.5 inch Solid State Drive - Black	£84.11​
HDD	Seagate 2TB BarraCuda 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive (64MB Cache, SATA 6GB/s, up to 210MB/s)	£54.83​
Power supply	Corsair CP-9020097-UK VS Series ATX/EPS 80 PLUS Power Supply Unit, 550 W	£39.97​
WiFi/Bluetooth module	ASUS PCE-AC55BT Dual-Band Wireless-AC1200 Bluetooth 4.0 PCI-E Adapter, 2x2 MIMO, Bluetooth 4.0 and BLE, Intel Wireless Display	£37.99​
Total		£1,124.87​

I don't think I used it too frequently, and I would say that I have maintained it fairly well (dusting regularly). My gut feelings tells me that a price point around £750 or less would be fair (~30+% depreciation over 3.5 years)..

Given that it has been almost 3.5 years since then, what do you think will be a fair price for this?

Thank you!

 

[punkncat]

The RX580 is quite a valuable commodity in itself these days and is quite likely the most valuable single part of the build. If you have ANY level of show a display graphics card I would probably part the GPU for average of local sales (eBay, etc) and then try to sell the rest as it stands. The R7 1700 is no slouch, even now.

Hurting resale on those procs, are the fact that AMD bargain basement priced them on the way out....

In the local market here, I would consider something like 50% original value as a starting point. As above, the GPU market right now is crazy so YMMV.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

i might offer $400-500 at most for something similar.
the case(if in good shape) and the GPU are really the only items that would be in any type of demand.

if you have a large local marketplace through social media or flea markets, etc than you can sometimes find an easy way to unload electronics for a decent price nearer to MSRP.
if not, than shipping and other hassle gets involved and you may need to lower your price expectation.

 

[Hendrick H]

The RX580 is quite a valuable commodity in itself these days and is quite likely the most valuable single part of the build. If you have ANY level of show a display graphics card I would probably part the GPU for average of local sales (eBay, etc) and then try to sell the rest as it stands. The R7 1700 is no slouch, even now.

Hurting resale on those procs, are the fact that AMD bargain basement priced them on the way out....

In the local market here, I would consider something like 50% original value as a starting point. As above, the GPU market right now is crazy so YMMV.

I see - just to clarify then, are you suggesting that I sell each of these by parts instead of selling the whole unit together? Looking around eBay, it does seem like the RX580 can fetch a good price (more than what I originally bought for).

 

[Hendrick H]

i might offer $400-500 at most for something similar.
the case(if in good shape) and the GPU are really the only items that would be in any type of demand.

if you have a large local marketplace through social media or flea markets, etc than you can sometimes find an easy way to unload electronics for a decent price nearer to MSRP.
if not, than shipping and other hassle gets involved and you may need to lower your price expectation.

Hmm since only 2 of the components are decent, would you suggest that I sell each of the components by parts instead of the whole unit?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

would you suggest that I sell each of the components by parts instead of the whole unit?

when going this route there's always a good chance you'll get stuck with a few items that don't sell.
but it can help to guarantee a higher price for higher demand products.

if you have something like a local Facebook Marketplace or an account on Craigslist or Ebay,
i would post the whole build and see what type of response it gets within a month or so.
if no one seems interested, than i may break it down and sell individually.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

DO NOT sell your PC as an entire unit. List all the components separately on eBay, and put the case on Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree for local pickup only, since the postage on a PC case is ridiculous.

This nets you 50%-100% more money for your parts. It's more work doing all the listings but it does pay off.

List everything as a no reserve auction starting at 99p, don't worry about setting prices, everything will be bid up to the fair market price.

Not many people shop eBay for used PCs. Plus the used PC market is saturated with old Dell Optiplex machines from offices and business, which go for £50. So any complete PC for sale is competing with that. Most people shopping eBay for used systems don't care about performance or brand name parts, and end up buying an old Dell.

Lots of people who do care about performance and brand name parts do shop for used parts on eBay, myself included. I would never buy an entire PC though, I'm only looking for RAM sticks, SSDs, CPUs etc.

 

[WS1995]

Hi guys,

I built my own PC in mid December 2017, and I am now looking to sell it as I rarely have time to use it, especially because I can only access my work environment via my work laptop.

I haven't been keeping eye on how PC components depreciate over time, and I have also tried to look for the price of the components in 2021, but can't seem to find all of them - so I would appreciate it a lot if you could give me some feedback on this.

I have managed to dig through my emails and figured out how much the PC cost me in total in December 2017:

Component	Name	Price
Graphics card	Gigabyte Radeon RX 580 8GB Aorus Graphics Card	£282.00​
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 1700 65 W 8/16 Core 3.7 GHz 4 MB CPU - Black	£229.99​
Memory	Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3000C15 Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2x8 GB) DDR4 3000 MHz C15 XMP 2.0 High Performance Desktop Memory Kit - Black	£187.46​
Motherboard	MSI Gaming AMD Ryzen B350 DDR4 VR Ready HDMI USB 3 ATX Motherboard (B350 GAMING PRO CARBON)	£109.98​
Case	Fractal Design Define R5 Blackout Edition Atx/Micro-Atx/Mini-Itx Case with Window for PC - Black	£98.54​
SSD	Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB 2.5 inch Solid State Drive - Black	£84.11​
HDD	Seagate 2TB BarraCuda 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive (64MB Cache, SATA 6GB/s, up to 210MB/s)	£54.83​
Power supply	Corsair CP-9020097-UK VS Series ATX/EPS 80 PLUS Power Supply Unit, 550 W	£39.97​
WiFi/Bluetooth module	ASUS PCE-AC55BT Dual-Band Wireless-AC1200 Bluetooth 4.0 PCI-E Adapter, 2x2 MIMO, Bluetooth 4.0 and BLE, Intel Wireless Display	£37.99​
Total		£1,124.87​

I don't think I used it too frequently, and I would say that I have maintained it fairly well (dusting regularly). My gut feelings tells me that a price point around £750 or less would be fair (~30+% depreciation over 3.5 years)..

Given that it has been almost 3.5 years since then, what do you think will be a fair price for this?

Thank you!

With all respect, £750 is very ambitious. I don't think you'd get more than perhaps £550 at best for it.

I sold a PC about a year ( I think...) and a few months ago, I ended up selling it for parts instead of as a whole unit, I got about £1,300, having spent £2,700 on it in early 2017 (March 2017 if i recall) and then selling it around February of either 2019 or 2020 - I forget which year it was. I was left with the PC case having sold all of the components, including the old clunky traditional HDD. I still have the old case in the back of one of the shared cars waiting to be disposed of.

The minute you try and sell it as a unit, everyone wants a bargain, so they're only going to offer probably 60-70% of what's it worth's at most, you're also trying to target a niche market, i.e people who want your exact setup, your CPU, with your amount of storage space and particular SSD's, your particular GPU, etc.

Most people will just go for the components, and thus, you're likely to get more money for it doing it this way, simply because people are happy to save perhaps £50 on a £200 CPU that's used. Selling it as a unit, as i've mentioned, everyone wants a bargain and therefore you get offered naff all for it, simply because they usually want to buy that system and add their own upgrades, but don't want to pay your asking price and then add perhaps another £200 on top for upgrades, so if it's worth say £550, they're likely to lowball and offer £350-£400.

I used to get some ridiculous lowball offers when I sold computer components on eBay, but eventually they always sold for within 25-35% of their original new price.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

With all respect, £750 is very ambitious. I don't think you'd get more than perhaps £550 at best for it.

Whereas the RX580 alone will probably fetch £400 in today's insane GPU market, and the rest of the stuff sold separately would total around £300-£350. So yeah you can get to £750 if you sell it as parts, maybe more if you catch the right day on eBay.

 

[WS1995]

Whereas the RX580 alone will probably fetch £400 in today's insane GPU market, and the rest of the stuff sold separately would total around £300-£350. So yeah you can get to £750 if you sell it as parts, maybe more if you catch the right day on eBay.

Exactly, mad, isn't it?

I could rip my 3070 out of my system, likely at any point right up until the end of this year, If i suddenly decided I didn't want to game any more, and probably get between £1200 and £1400 for it SECOND HAND. Crazy times we're in right now.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

Exactly, mad, isn't it?

I could rip my 3070 out of my system, likely at any point right up until the end of this year, If i suddenly decided I didn't want to game any more, and probably get between £1200 and £1400 for it SECOND HAND. Crazy times we're in right now.

I'm seriously considering selling all my GPUs and running on iGPU for the next 18 months until the 3080Ti comes out with the mining nerf...

 

[WS1995]

I'm seriously considering selling all my GPUs and running on iGPU for the next 18 months until the 3080Ti comes out with the mining nerf...

Miners really p*** me off. You get greedy people buying 6-7 cards for mining, they mine for 6 months or so and realise it's not as lucrative as they thought, having paid perhaps £800 for each 3080, they rip it out and stick it on eBay for £2,000. Absolutely disgusting. There's making a bit of money, and then there's being selfish and hogging cards so everyone else can't get one and is forced to be ripped off by people selling them for a ridiculous markup.

That's why I won't be selling mine, full stop, i'm not one of those people. I ended up buying my system as pre-built machine. I wanted a 3080 initially but no stock for months, best ETA I saw was mid September this year, and that was prioritised for existing pre-orders probably placed dating back to the start of the year, so the chances of me getting one even then were slim.

Ended up getting this pre-built system from CyberPower PC, and any additional upgrades I'm perfectly capable of doing myself. So far i've added extra RAM, an 870 Evo SSD, and I plan to replace the PSU and add another M2 NVME SSD in a few weeks when I get paid.

 

[Karadjgne]

Don't part it out. Nobody is buying a B350 when the B450/550 can be had for $100 or less brand new. Very few will pay top dollar for a 1st gen Ryzen, which are known to be somewhat buggy unless lucky or tweaked. Storage is cheap enough that buying used is a band-aid, psu's are just as bad unless it's a really great psu at a good price.

A fully functional, working pc as a whole will get you sold faster than piecemeal, even IF individual prices could be higher, overall you'll lose out. Ppl can see its working, psu works, ram works, gpu works, nothing is dead prior to sale. It's proof.

Take plenty of pictures, showing all parts.

£750 is a decent starting point, give up £50 if you must, but ppl are desperate for a decent gpu and won't let £50 stop them. Draw the line at £700, if they balk, there will be someone else.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

Don't part it out. Nobody is buying a B350 when the B450/550 can be had for $100 or less brand new. Very few will pay top dollar for a 1st gen Ryzen, which are known to be somewhat buggy unless lucky or tweaked. Storage is cheap enough that buying used is a band-aid, psu's are just as bad unless it's a really great psu at a good price.

Sorry but you're wrong, people won't pay "top dollar" for those parts, no. But they will definitely pay more than if they were sold as a complete PC. even without selling the motherboard at all.

 

[USAFRet]

Sell it as a whole, you'll sell and be done with it.

Part it out, and you may (or may not) get better prices for the parts individually.
But you WILL be left with stuff no one wants.

 

[TommyTwoTone66]

Sell it as a whole, you'll sell and be done with it.

Part it out, and you may (or may not) get better prices for the parts individually.
But you WILL be left with stuff no one wants.

I'd rather have £750 and need to dispose of a motherboard and an old PSU than £500 and nothing to throw out, but that's just me.

 

[USAFRet]

I'd rather have £750 and need to dispose of a motherboard and an old PSU than £500 and nothing to throw out, but that's just me.

Either way.

It only counts when money changes hands.

 

[Karadjgne]

You might get £400 for the gpu. That's the point. The rest is maybe £100 IF you can sell it. Cpus aren't hard to come by, with Zen3 out everyone is selling their Zen & Zen+ cpus or trying to. It's a buyers market for everything except gpus.

 

[WS1995]

Sell it as a whole, you'll sell and be done with it.

Part it out, and you may (or may not) get better prices for the parts individually.
But you WILL be left with stuff no one wants.

Problem with selling it as a whole unit, is you’re waiting for that buyer that wants that exact spec, which could take some time. If a buyer doesn’t want that spec, but can work with that system with some upgrades, in my experience they will usually lowball and give rubbish offers, and you end up accepting about 60-70% of what you actually list it for to just get rid of it, fed up of waiting for the right buyer.

By selling the individual components, you’re appealing to many people. Who can buy individual components and use them in any combination of their own.

In the experience i’ve had, you get lowballed significantly more selling it as a whole (unless it is a high end system) than you do selling for parts.

Of course there’s two trains of thought here, and each has their own pros and cons.

Personally, I would part it out. I’ve always found when trying to sell the PC as a unit, unless the spec is near enough exactly what the buyer wants, they will offer nowhere near the asking price.

 

[USAFRet]

Problem with selling it as a whole unit, is you’re waiting for that buyer that wants that exact spec, which could take some time. If a buyer doesn’t want that spec, but can work with that system with some upgrades, in my experience they will usually lowball and give rubbish offers, and you end up accepting about 60-70% of what you actually list it for to just get rid of it, fed up of waiting for the right buyer.

So advertise it both ways.

fleabay as individual parts, primarily the GPU.
Simultaneously, the whole thing locally via craigslist or whatever is local.

If a good fleabay buy for the GPU ensues, take it apart and ship it.
Or if a local buyer appears tomorrow with cash in hand...take it.

 

[WS1995]

So advertise it both ways.

fleabay as individual parts, primarily the GPU.
Simultaneously, the whole thing locally via craigslist or whatever is local.

If a good fleabay buy for the GPU ensues, take it apart and ship it.
Or if a local buyer appears tomorrow with cash in hand...take it.

Of course, only slight issue, with a very remote chance is if you get a buyer for the system (perhaps whilst you are at work, or asleep) and then someone buys one of the critical components listed separately, perhaps, the CPU, then you have to disappoint one buyer and cancel their order, affecting your seller ratings and defects (eBay/Amazon).

Some buyers are quick to leave feedback accusing you of being a time wasting seller, when it’s not the case at all.

Also, given he listed the prices in pound sterling, GBP, I’d say it’s safe to assume he’s British based, same as me, our equivalent to Craigslist is Gumtree, which isn’t really as popular as Craigslist is in the US.

Half the things on Gumtree these days are either scams, or broken and don’t work.

All depends what OP wants I guess. Quick cash, but possibly less of it for a fast sale , or wait weeks/months waiting for the right buyer who wants that system and is also prepared to pay near that asking price.

 

[Hendrick H]

DO NOT sell your PC as an entire unit. List all the components separately on eBay, and put the case on Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree for local pickup only, since the postage on a PC case is ridiculous.

This nets you 50%-100% more money for your parts. It's more work doing all the listings but it does pay off.

List everything as a no reserve auction starting at 99p, don't worry about setting prices, everything will be bid up to the fair market price.

Not many people shop eBay for used PCs. Plus the used PC market is saturated with old Dell Optiplex machines from offices and business, which go for £50. So any complete PC for sale is competing with that. Most people shopping eBay for used systems don't care about performance or brand name parts, and end up buying an old Dell.

Lots of people who do care about performance and brand name parts do shop for used parts on eBay, myself included. I would never buy an entire PC though, I'm only looking for RAM sticks, SSDs, CPUs etc.

That's a very fair point - thank you for raising that! I will most probably do what you say, sell the parts on eBay, and the case on FB Marketplace/GumTree for pickup only. I will be moving in to London in a month's time, so I might start doing that then instead of now. Very good shout - thank you again!

 

[Hendrick H]

With all respect, £750 is very ambitious. I don't think you'd get more than perhaps £550 at best for it.

I sold a PC about a year ( I think...) and a few months ago, I ended up selling it for parts instead of as a whole unit, I got about £1,300, having spent £2,700 on it in early 2017 (March 2017 if i recall) and then selling it around February of either 2019 or 2020 - I forget which year it was. I was left with the PC case having sold all of the components, including the old clunky traditional HDD. I still have the old case in the back of one of the shared cars waiting to be disposed of.

The minute you try and sell it as a unit, everyone wants a bargain, so they're only going to offer probably 60-70% of what's it worth's at most, you're also trying to target a niche market, i.e people who want your exact setup, your CPU, with your amount of storage space and particular SSD's, your particular GPU, etc.

Most people will just go for the components, and thus, you're likely to get more money for it doing it this way, simply because people are happy to save perhaps £50 on a £200 CPU that's used. Selling it as a unit, as i've mentioned, everyone wants a bargain and therefore you get offered naff all for it, simply because they usually want to buy that system and add their own upgrades, but don't want to pay your asking price and then add perhaps another £200 on top for upgrades, so if it's worth say £550, they're likely to lowball and offer £350-£400.

I used to get some ridiculous lowball offers when I sold computer components on eBay, but eventually they always sold for within 25-35% of their original new price.

Yes, you're right. Thank you for sharing your experience - it seems that selling it as components make more sense - so I'll do just that!

 

[Hendrick H]

Don't part it out. Nobody is buying a B350 when the B450/550 can be had for $100 or less brand new. Very few will pay top dollar for a 1st gen Ryzen, which are known to be somewhat buggy unless lucky or tweaked. Storage is cheap enough that buying used is a band-aid, psu's are just as bad unless it's a really great psu at a good price.

A fully functional, working pc as a whole will get you sold faster than piecemeal, even IF individual prices could be higher, overall you'll lose out. Ppl can see its working, psu works, ram works, gpu works, nothing is dead prior to sale. It's proof.

Take plenty of pictures, showing all parts.

£750 is a decent starting point, give up £50 if you must, but ppl are desperate for a decent gpu and won't let £50 stop them. Draw the line at £700, if they balk, there will be someone else.

Since I will be moving to another city within a month, I will try your suggestion to sell it as a unit at around that range, and if there's a buyer, that'd be fab! Otherwise, once I've moved and settled down, I will probably sell them by parts.