The Gaming PC Refurbishing Experiment

[UltraMega]

16 minutes ago, Sir Beregond said:

 

Odd config. For what 3700X's go for these days you could easily have done a comparable Zen 3 part I reckon and maybe better than an A520.

 

But I don't know what you got your parts for.

3700X was $100. A 5600X would be about $150, and probably need better cooling. 

 

Most people who buy PCs like this don't know anything about motherboards, so B550 vs A520 is a meaningless difference, and really, it's also a meaningless difference to the PC since it won't be OCed or anything. Functionally the only real difference is PCIe 3 vs PCIe 4, but I aim for nvme drives that are about 3000mb/s, which is faster than an Xbox so should work just fine for any an all current get titles. SSDs that actually benefit from PCIe 4 are still pretty expensive and it's just an extra cost that makes no difference for games at all right now. Getting an SSD that's twice as fast as another doesn't make the game load twice as fast or even close usually it barely makes any difference at all. 

 

The logic I've followed is to build PCs that are comfortably ahead of a current get console in every meaningful way, but not overly so as to balloon the cost. 3700X has the same number of threads as a console, but the 5600X has less so I opt for the one that's a better match, and really if a game doesn't run well on a 3700X today, it's going to run even worse on a console and it's probably just a poorly optimized game. 
 

That said, this will probably be my last Ryzen 3000 build for resale. 

Edited June 12, 2023 by UltraMega

[pio]

Yeah its probably getting to the point to look at Ryzen 5000 series and maybe 12th gen Intels going forward for used stuff probably.

[GanjaSMK]

Man oh man I like the approach!  I just finally found a place to live in Carson City NV; visiting a place I used to do volunteer/paid work for I feel like I might have a good outlet for you for some parts outside of the normal channels.  I'll pm you! 

[UltraMega]

So I got a white sheet and took some clean pics of the PC and put it on Etsy. The price is much higher there than I would aim for locally, but it's still cheaper/better than anything else I've seen in the same range on there now. Would be cool kind of selling worked. 
 

RealComputers - Etsy Canada

WWW.ETSY.COM

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Shop Quality Custom Gaming Computers by RealComputers located in California, United States.

^No idea why it says Canada 

 

 

New Gaming PC - AMD 3700X / GeForce 3070 / 32GB 3600Mhz Ram / 2TB nvme SSD

WWW.EBAY.COM

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Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for New Gaming PC - AMD 3700X / GeForce 3070 / 32GB 3600Mhz Ram / 2TB nvme SSD at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many...

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by UltraMega

[GanjaSMK]

How (hard/easy/what struck you as odd or awesome) setting up on Etsy?  I ask simply because I'm about to start something similar, albeit not computer based sales. 

[UltraMega]

1 hour ago, GanjaSMK said:

How (hard/easy/what struck you as odd or awesome) setting up on Etsy?  I ask simply because I'm about to start something similar, albeit not computer based sales. 

Etsy has home made stuff, and other gaming computers listed that I think I can beat. Seems similar to ebay but perhaps better suited for home made stuff. I'd like to be able to see more of these if I can and figuring out how to sell them online would be ideal, so Etsy is just part of that. 

 

Easy to setup, but we'll see about getting actual sales. 

Edited June 15, 2023 by UltraMega

[GanjaSMK]

Best of damn luck to you Ultra; I hope you are successful and happy with your approach!

[UltraMega]

20 hours ago, GanjaSMK said:

Best of damn luck to you Ultra; I hope you are successful and happy with your approach!

Thanks man. Would be a dream come true if I could just chill at home and build gaming PCs all the time for a living. Hopefully I can figure out a way to get some traction online. 

 

I think I have an amazon seller account... maybe I'll try that.

[neurotix]

On 15/06/2023 at 12:07, UltraMega said:

Etsy has home made stuff, and other gaming computers listed that I think I can beat. Seems similar to ebay but perhaps better suited for home made stuff. I'd like to be able to see more of these if I can and figuring out how to sell them online would be ideal, so Etsy is just part of that. 

 

Easy to setup, but we'll see about getting actual sales. 

Wouldn't the shipping be insane if you sold them online?

[UltraMega]

1 hour ago, neurotix said:

Wouldn't the shipping be insane if you sold them online?

Probably be about $100 I think. 

[neurotix]

Well if people are willing to pay it, I guess it could work, but you can't really lower the price of the rig to offset shipping or you'd only make like $50.

[UltraMega]

35 minutes ago, neurotix said:

Well if people are willing to pay it, I guess it could work, but you can't really lower the price of the rig to offset shipping or you'd only make like $50.

Might be worth it to make low profit on a couple sales if it lead to reviews on that platform. 

[UltraMega]

Looks like I just got my first sale on Etsy, someone just ordered the PC I had listed. 

 

I had initially listed it for $1200 and lowered the price over time down to $999. I should still make a small profit, and hopefully get a little traction to my Etsy account to make the next sale easier/pay more. 

 

I don't still have the box for the case I used for this PC, so shipping it will be fun. 

[neurotix]

Congratulations Ultra. Hope your next build goes for more.

 

P.s. if you need graphics for your Etsy storefront, let me know in a pm and what you want and I'll try to help you.

[UltraMega]

Well, this is embarrassing but the sale did not go through. Looks like it was a fake buyer, and Etsy denied their payment. 

 

Hopefully it will sell soon. 

[UltraMega]

PC sold on Etsy for real this time. Payment cleared, everything good to go. I just have to ship out the PC now. 

[neurotix]

Hope this turns into something good for you. Best of luck. You should keep doing the redbubble thing too. (Make sone cyberpunk city designs with printing on the sleeves like the one you made for EHW and I'd buy one).

 

Best wishes man.

[UltraMega]

I've completed the Etsy order, shipping it out today. Ordered another identical case so I can reuse the box for shipping. Feel dumb for not keeping the original box. 

 

I cut some foam to support the GPU and make sure it can't move around during shipping. Paid for shipping insurance and signature verification, and the shipping only cost $45. 

[UltraMega]

Moving away from Ryzen 3000. Next PC will be:

 

AMD 5700X 16 thread CPU

3600Mhz 32GB CL16 Ram

2TB PCIe4 4500MB/s M.2 drive

GIGABYTE B550M DS3H AC (wifi)

Thermaltake Toughpower TPD-0750M

 

About $600 in parts. 

 

Same case as the last PC. Have not settled on a GPU yet. 

 

 

All new parts. This started as a re-sell experiment, and I may source a lightly used GPU if I find a good deal on one, but I am moving away from used part and simply selling retail hardware now. 

 

I love the idea of recycling hardware, and I would really like that to be a part of my future PC sales, but now that I feel I've found an avenue to sell PCs, and I'm going to try to tap it with quality PCs, and maybe move back into refurbs once I get established.

 

Two months from now I hope to have 3-5 PCs listed on my Etsy account ranging from $700-$1500. 

 

What would you guy like to see specs wise in that price range? Or any range?

 

Edited July 20, 2023 by UltraMega

[Sir Beregond]

If you are going to venture into doing new parts builds, then take a look at your competition. Once you are getting north of $1000 I'd be expecting Zen 4, 12th gen/13th gen platforms. If still using Zen 3, then has to be a 5800X3D at that point.

 

I know not everyone has these around, but I look at the PowerSpec lineup at Micro Center locally for a good idea. Honestly it's why I thought the Zen 2 system at $1200 was kind of a ripoff, because $1200 can get me an i5-12600kf and a 3070 Ti based PowerSpec. Obviously can look at other SI's for price point configs as well.

[Fluxmaven]

Having a Microcenter nearby is awesome. On top of a lot of their stuff already being competitively priced, they do huge markdowns on open box stuff. Typically their open box stuff is cheaper than used components and still have a full manufactures warranty. 

 

I've also built/upgraded/repaired PCs on the side as a hobby off and on over the past 15 years. Don't really bother with it anymore. To make it an actual career you'd need to sell a ton of PCs to replace a full time job with benefits. 

 

I think it actually gets harder moving into all new component builds as your profit margins get slimmer to keep the overall price competitive. You need to undercut established names in the prebuilt or custom space. Why would someone drop $1500 on a random Etsy store when they can buy a system with a warranty from a brand they have heard of? 

 

Not trying to dissuade you from pursuing this, just saying that it will be an uphill battle to make a living doing it.

 

[UltraMega]

3 hours ago, Fluxmaven said:

Having a Microcenter nearby is awesome. On top of a lot of their stuff already being competitively priced, they do huge markdowns on open box stuff. Typically their open box stuff is cheaper than used components and still have a full manufactures warranty. 

 

I've also built/upgraded/repaired PCs on the side as a hobby off and on over the past 15 years. Don't really bother with it anymore. To make it an actual career you'd need to sell a ton of PCs to replace a full time job with benefits. 

 

I think it actually gets harder moving into all new component builds as your profit margins get slimmer to keep the overall price competitive. You need to undercut established names in the prebuilt or custom space. Why would someone drop $1500 on a random Etsy store when they can buy a system with a warranty from a brand they have heard of? 

 

Not trying to dissuade you from pursuing this, just saying that it will be an uphill battle to make a living doing it.

 

To answer why someone would use Etsy to buy a PC:

 

I think it's probably cheaper than buying a PC from one of those gaming PC sites. You generally only get a 30-90 day warranty on PCs like this no matter where you buy them, unless you pay for an extended warranty, and I offer a 90 day warranty on all the PCs I build. I think some people also like the idea of buying from "the little guy" rather than a big business as well. 

 

Another reason is that when you buy something on Etsy, I think it's usually safe to assume the person selling the item has a passion for it, and in the case of gaming computers, more expert level knowledge of how to properly build and setup a computer. I know from first hand experience that the people building computers at a place like Digital Storm have basically no understanding of the hardware they're putting together and only know how to do it because someone trained them to. They're not PC gamers at all, just assembly line workers. I think a lot of people prefer to get a PC from a PC gamer who fully understands everything about the PC. If there is ever an issue, the customer only has to deal with one person instead of a big business with an annoying phone tree or anything like that. 

 

Etsy is a bit of an odd platform, I agree, but someone already bought the PC I listed and other sellers on there are clearly making it work so . There are a lot of frilly pink PCs on there though, might have to build a pink PC. 

Edited July 20, 2023 by UltraMega

[UltraMega]

5 hours ago, Sir Beregond said:

If you are going to venture into doing new parts builds, then take a look at your competition. Once you are getting north of $1000 I'd be expecting Zen 4, 12th gen/13th gen platforms. If still using Zen 3, then has to be a 5800X3D at that point.

 

I know not everyone has these around, but I look at the PowerSpec lineup at Micro Center locally for a good idea. Honestly it's why I thought the Zen 2 system at $1200 was kind of a ripoff, because $1200 can get me an i5-12600kf and a 3070 Ti based PowerSpec. Obviously can look at other SI's for price point configs as well.

Got a pretty good deal on the 5700X, newegg was selling them for $178 at the time, which is pretty good for new. Usually they go for more than that used. I particularly like the 5700X because it's almost the exact same performance as a 5800X but only 65 watts and therefore much easier to cool. Going with a 5800X or X3D would mean the whole build gets a lot more expensive because of the added cost of the CPU and cooling requirements. 

This PC will probably be going for around $1000 unless I get something better than a 3070 for it. I agree that going any higher on the price would mean moving to Zen 4. I don't think the 5800X3d is a particularly good value, even used, because a Ryzen 7600 performs about the same for gaming and it's cheaper. 

[neurotix]

Getting stuff cheap or used or even new but on sale and building rigs, pricing them to undercut the competition will only work well from a business sense if you do volume and have a stable supplier of parts.

 

Not that I'm a businessman or anything but that's what worked to make me a lot of money in a few online games. Selling gems in WoW and stuff like that.

 

I know that's not what you're after and you want to do quality, and I agree you should be able to sell these on the basis of your PC expertise.

 

I would urge you to look at anidees cases because they make high quality cases with powder coated paint, 0.8mm thick tempered glass side panels, and they include RGB fans and light strips that connect to a controller box they provide that comes with a remote- a lot of people want full RGB nowadays.

 

Best wishes for your success going forward with this.

[UltraMega]

I don't expect this to turn into a full time business or anything. Any profits I make will just be on top of what I'd make otherwise. 

 

If I can get in a routine of selling just one per week and making $150 per sale, that's an extra $600 a month. If I could do 4 each week, then it would be like a real business but I don't expect that to happen anytime soon, if ever.