A player shares his new gift with the community. But they explain to him that the gifted PC is not as great as he had hoped.
If you receive a new computer or gaming PC as a gift, it is initially something special. On reddit a player reports that he received a computer as a gift. He does not reveal from whom and for what reason.
What hardware is in the computer? The following hardware is installed in the system:
- Processor: i7-2600
- Graphics card: GT 730, 2 GB
- RAM: 16 GB
- Storage: 500 GB (HDD) + 120 GB (SSD)
The player posts a picture of the offer, which costs about 310 euros. If you specifically search for the hardware and the price, you will find the offer listed on eBay. For reasons, we do not link the offer here.
He explains in another post that he wants to transfer components from his old gaming system to the new system. This way, he would have a meaningful upgrade.
I plan to swap the good parts from my old rig into the new rig where possible. The rig I have been using is already 8 years old, so the new rig is an upgrade when the crappy parts are replaced.
What is the catch? The player himself claims that his hardware is already about 8 years old, and an upgrade would be worthwhile here. However, he does not specify any concrete components. What he has not considered, though, is that the hardware he receives as a gift is not much younger and in some cases even older than his current hardware:
- The Intel processor i7-2600 was released in 2011, making it over 13 years old. It is also no longer officially supported by Intel.
- The GT 730 is a low-end graphics card used primarily in office systems when the processor does not have an integrated graphics chip. You can’t really game with this chip.
The reactions are therefore rather muted. One person explains: “A good thing, you don’t pay for it yourself.” Others add that the price for the old hardware is still far too high. After all, that is over 300 euros that the givers would spend, and that hardware is no longer worth that.
Old hardware is only worth it in a few cases
Is old hardware worth it at all? The problem with very old components is often that they limit themselves: You can only equip a 10-year-old processor with a similarly old motherboard and DDR3 RAM. Therefore, you will never enjoy modern features. Additionally, older CPUs often do not operate in a cost-efficient manner.
This user is likely to face all these problems in the long term: The processor is hopelessly outdated, and the low-end graphics card is too. A modern Ryzen processor with an integrated graphics chip (so-called APU) would serve better here and not cost much more.
For modern hardware, you need to replace the entire system (motherboard, RAM, and CPU). “Upgrading” old hardware with similarly old hardware is rarely worth it. You can find a list of hardware that you shouldn’t buy anymore in the following article directly on MeinMMO: 7 upgrades for your gaming PC that you should definitely not buy
