Oh Man...good luck. With a few exceptions, computers are one of the few things that depreciate faster than cars these days and only slightly slower than organic food. LOL.

Big things that can reduce depreciation on a used system in my experience are:

High end Sound Cards (Near audiophile quality or higher)
High End Cases (Lian-Li (light) , Silverstone (heavy), SuperMicro, Antec)
High end CPU Coolers (Noctua, Sythe, Artic Cooling, a few others)
Wireless Keyboards/Mouse
SSD drives
DDR3 RAM
Serial Header Brackets
Water Cooling parts

I wish you all the best of luck.

Yeah I know...I am trying to see what someone might offer.

Then weigh all the options. If I get some for it and then subtract that from the cost of my build, then compare that figure to if I just keep my computer, use the components that are usable in a new build...minus my price..

It will give me a good idea which way is better. One way will be cheaper..and if keeping my system is cheaper..it lets me have some extra items to sell as well.

We'll see..I doubt anyone will offer much if anything... It's on craigslist..wee.

Gimme! I am SO fed up with computer building, I haven't done much else this whole year. I am cursed. I've been through 4 PSU's since February (not standard ones, quality brands and not too weak ones, either. Well, two were warrranty replacements...). Somewhere down the line I bought a notebook to have ANY computer at all and that's where I am right now, because desktop is once again out of order. Smells like melting plastic... cause to be determined. I've been doing similar troubleshooting for months, changing every possible component. I wanted to have a working pc on May 17th... to be fair, I had one. Shoulda wished for not a date, but for a generous timeframe *sigh*.

What's your computer's specs? FPS look good.
But then of course the shipping would be ridiculous. ;)
At least I don't have to worry about broken patches now, as the one 3d game I can play with the notebook is Titan Quest. Not even Witcher 1, so I could play Medical Problems 2. :(

in the UK so forgive me if i am wrong...but isnt craigslist a paedo alert site ?

I've always donated my old PCs to a local school. They're not really something with terribly good resell value, and a lot of schools have terrible computers. Just another outlet if you don't think the crazy hippy who sends you an email on Craigslist and offers you some healing crystals in exchange doesn't work out (I actually had a guy attempt to do this when I had an old autombile up on Craigslist). :p

I don't even have an old pc. I keep incremental upgrading. So, eventually there all new parts. Rinse, repeat. I guess I do have a lot of old parts that can be assembled into a pc, though.................. :-)

. I've built a numer of systems for people that have been out there 5+ years. Sounds like you've been through #$%. Were are your PSU's coming from and what were they? Wow!

My forumla for a gamer's system:

4x Core AMD (for those who want more upgradability later on and not be bled by Intel for an i7)

Lian-Li mid-tower case (LOTs of room to expand the depreciation value of near zero)

Asus or Gigabyte MB with at least 16+ GB DDR3 ram capacity.

Seasonic Modular 550-700W power supply (the X-series is really nice)

Noctua CPU cooler (2nd choice is Arctic cooling, cheaper and easier to get)

Pioneer or Plextor Optical drive, Asus if in a pinch, avoid LG, many returns reported to me.
Stick to DVD to be safe for reading scratched disks.

Hitachi Enterprise SATA drives (or Seagate ENTERPRISE (not standard) if you can't get Hitachi (now part of Western Digital),
some go with WD Black edition but data recovery shops say Hitachi is the way to go)

RAM I ike Samsung, Cricial or Cosair. Kingston is fall back for me when nothing else is available.

Asus Xonar sound cards (several available) right now they are the best deal for high grade sound. The audiophile grade card has no 3d sound but I'd do that one if it was cheaper.

Configure a RAID 0 or 10 (need hardware card of onboard). Windows 7 won't support RAID 10 software raid yet #$%#. Suppose an image backup and RAID 0 is good enough for pure gaming. This is one reason I love Linux: fantastic on RAID 10, but (sob) not enough games run on it so its my file server.

ATI Card with at least 2 GB ram. Gigabyte makes some of the best build cards I've seen. Asus is okay but they kinda cut a few corners on cooling to my surprise. I don't do EVGA because I've had driver issues with their cards before. Expect $150-200 for a decent graphics card.


I give this system 5-7 years of gaming fun before you feel the need to upgrade. Best of luck to all building/getting a gaming PC.

I guess this was a misunderstanding. I actually meant building, not buying (depleted even my credit with my troubleshooting, so no money for buying anyway). I do build my computers myself, have never bought a system. Well, except for the notebook. ;)

And my question was rather what the system was that NewYears1978 wants to get rid of.
What you describe is very close to my system, except I will NEVER AGAIN use an ATI card. Had two of different generations, both had horrible tearing and other unpleasantries. Oh, and there's another difference in my system: Obviously NOT. Not for me. And it's really not my fault that it breaks all the time - noooo, I don't cut a PCIe card to fit in a PCI slot, lol. And it doesn't even really break, either. It starts to smell for no reason and thus the replacing of the right component is a question of luck. Which seems to be fresh out for me. :(
Problem is, I smell the smell long before it actually expires and I can't wait for that to happen, I have to sleep and live in close quarters with my pc. ;)

I rered and changed my posting. Yes I understand you are building your PC. As for ATi cards, I do agree that ATI were a mess awhile back. Recent reports indicate they have improve significantly. Although I've been using Nvidia in the past because it was more Linux Friendly, my next card I'll probably give ATI a try when I Feel the need to go to a 2 GB cards as all drivers including the Linux closed and open-source drivers have improved significantly from all reports.

I gave a list of parts I recommend. The Seasonic power supplies come with 5 year warranties as do the Enterprise grade Hitachi and Enterprise grade Seagate drives. I'm sure the problems you've had arne't your fault but...the suppliers may be giving you old hardware so...I look at hardware manufacturing dates. I may have one advantage over you in all fairness: I deal direct with mainstream distributors as its part of my business. :D I would be curious who manufactured the hardware that broke down as you described for referece if you could be so kind.

You are correct in all counts, except for the graphics card.

The most you will get out of a graphic card, is 2.5-3 years. That is of course, if you buy a state of the art card, which btw is much more expensive than $150.

If you are a top gamer this is true. For me any card more than $200 I think is above the performance/dollar reasonablity ratio. $150 for for me is a modest cost without being cheap with video. Its worked well for me and my buyers have been happy. To keep a machine at state-of-the-art for graphics is difficult unless you have lots of cash to blow which many don't. For me I'm happy if I build a machine that performs well after 5 years on the latest OS. I guess I never used the latest cards. They make me nervous as fans are required with the latest "hottest" cards and fans are usually the first component to die on machines I repair. (Often due to lack of regular maintanance and air dusting leading to dust/dirt/cobweb buildup). Thanks for the complement.

Audrey, here is my system:
Case: Alienware Predator Full ATX Tower - Black w/Blue LED
Included Fans:
Exhaust: 120mm (Alienware w/case)
Intake - Left: 80mm BLUE LED (Added)
Intake - Front: 80mm (Alienware w/case)
Intake - Right: 80mm (Alienware w/case)
Heatsink: 120mm BLUE LED (Added)
Heatsink: 120mm (Came w/Coolmaster)

Motherboard: EVGA nForce 680i SLI
Power Supply: Dell N1000P-00 1000w PSU
CPU: Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo 3.0Ghz - Overclocked Stable to 4.0 Ghz
Heatsink: Coolmaster Hyper 212 Plus
Graphics Card: XFX HD6850 1Gb 256bit DDR5 PCIe 2.1 x16 CrossfireX Eyefinity Ready - Overclocked 950/1150
Memory: G.Skill 4 GB (2x2GB Dual Channel) DDR2 - F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ
Hard Drive: "Seagate Barracuda 250Gb ST3250820AC
DVD Drive: NEC ND 2510A - DVD±RW Internal black
Mouse: Alienware Keyboard - KU0402
Keyboard: "Alienware Mouse - MO93UO
Monitor: Dell 2007WFP 21" 16:9 LCD
Speakers: Altec Lansing Speakers - BX1020


This is pasted off a spreadsheet so it might not be spaced right in here. =)

To the others saying computers aren't worth anything, I am aware. You can always build a new system for a good price...if you know how. However if you are not a computer person and you have prebuilt systems you can get a good deal buying someone elses.

I typically upgrade but I want a new case so I thought I might build a whole computer (I enjoy it)

I'll either a) Keep my old computer for work or my daughters b) sell it if I can get something worthwhile c) Use pieces of my current one but upgrade most core components


BTW @Audrey, thank you for sending Dirk Nowitzki to us :)

Hm, I have the same graphics card as you and don't get that FPS. Which setting do you run it on?

Can anyone upload this patch on a sendspace or speedyshare? cause i download it with 4kb/s speed..

I saw new fistfight moves and some new items. Anyone experienced those after the patch, too?