A player bought a PC case at an auction. But the surprise comes when he opens the case at home. Because inside is a complete PC. A company employee reported in the community, explaining: It used to cost 8,000 euros.
What did the user buy? The English-language magazine Dexerto reports that a user bought a computer at an auction. The Fractal Design Define 7 XL, a PC case, was offered here.
The mentioned player finally made a bid and won the case for 23.50 US dollars, which is equivalent to about 20 euros. The auction is still viewable directly at CapitalCityOnlineAuction (as of September 12, 2025).
However, when the user finally picked up the case from the seller, he couldn’t believe his eyes: Because inside the case was a complete PC, and the hardware is still very powerful today:
- AMD Threadripper 3960X
- 256 GB RAM
- Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti
Employee reports and reveals: The computer used to sell for about 8,000 US dollars
What was the hardware supposed to cost back then? A user on Reddit, claiming to be an employee of Puget Systems, explained that the computer was supposed to cost about 8,000 US dollars back then. Converted, that’s around 7,000 euros:
Just so you know: This system was probably sold at the end of 2021/beginning of 2022 and would have cost about 8,000 dollars back then. Many of these systems had 2 to 4 NVMe drives, so you probably also have over 4 to 8 TB of fast storage!
All in all, not a bad purchase for 32 dollars*!
* Note from the editor: The user made a typo at the beginning of their Reddit thread, which is why the commentator refers to 32 instead of 23 dollars. The image in the thread shows the correct price of 23.50 dollars.
How is the price composed? Just the AMD Threadripper 3960X cost around 1,400 euros at release. The RTX 3080 Ti was sold at a MSRP of 1,089 euros, but due to hardware shortages, it was significantly less available and correspondingly much more expensive. Additionally, PC companies charge a premium for assembly, which is then included in the purchase price.
And even if the user had only gotten the Fractal Design case for 20 euros, that would have already been a bargain: Because the Fractal Design Define 7 XL is still sold for around 200 euros today (via Geizhals.de).
Players are discussing the purchase of gaming hardware. And many note: Those who invested a lot of money in their PC many years ago have almost nothing left of it today. Because PC hardware becomes outdated in just a few years: A player paid 3,000 euros for a gaming PC – Today he gets only 800 euros for it and warns: “Computers are not an investment”
