A gamer wants to dispose of an old graphics card. But then he must be surprised to find that the graphics card is still theoretically worth a lot of money. The reason behind this is also that many companies and even some states still use outdated hardware and are continuously looking for replacements.
A gamer reports that he wanted to throw away his old graphics card. His Nvidia GeForce 4 is at least 20 years old and can no longer really be used in modern systems, and modern games can no longer be played with it anyway.
But when he searches for his graphics card on eBay, he is surprised to find offers for his model ranging from $350 to around $1,000 (via reddit.com). We also find offers on eBay between 800 and 900 euros, but only in the USA and not in Germany (via ebay.de). The user expresses some confusion himself:
Is this card really worth that much? I can understand a slightly higher value because it is no longer produced, but the demand for this card cannot be that high, can it?
Why is the card so valuable? The special thing about this graphics card is the connections, as it is a Mac model with ADC connectors. Someone explains that it is very expensive to repair ADC Mac computers:
The cables are like gold these days and hardly available new. Standard PC versions are not expensive. Anyone asking for more than scrap value will not sell. Only the fancy Apple versions are something special.
Special use cases can drive up the value
Why are people willing to pay so much money for old hardware? On one side, there are of course collectors who want to pay a lot for certain products or devices to display them in a showcase. For them, the old hardware is a piece of history that they may have even experienced.
On the other hand, there are also companies that rely on ancient computer systems or where the machine is only compatible with an older system. If a component breaks down here, it is accordingly difficult to obtain a replacement because the partly 20-year-old hardware is no longer manufactured. Someone explains on reddit under the post that his company had to pay $8,000 to replace a 4-GB hard drive in an old server.
And there are some use cases where companies or even states still use or have long used old hardware:
- For example, there is a legal norm in Japan that prescribes the use of physical data carriers such as floppy disks. This is reported by colleagues from Heise.
- The Deutsche Bahn used floppy disks for reservation data for years. However, the Deutsche Bahn has now introduced a new digital system.
- Just recently, a job advertisement from Deutsche Bahn caused a stir as it sought employees who could work with Windows 3.11. The DB has since retracted the advertisement.
- Many such machines are designed for 40 or 50 years and therefore rely on hardware that is considered outdated today.
- There are also exceptions for somewhat modern systems: For example, Microsoft extended support for Windows 7 for corporate licenses and is said to have charged handsomely for it (via stadt-bremerhaven.de). For instance, the German government paid around two million euros in 2020 for extended support for Windows 7 beyond its end date.
Therefore, if you still have old “treasures” lying around in your basement, it might be worth checking whether those items are still worth something before they end up in the junkyard.
Continuing to use old hardware: A man from South Dakota reported that he built a PC. He used 5 parts that he fished out of a dumpster from a PC store. Only two parts of the PC are not from the dumpster; he still had them at home.
Hobbyist rummages through dumpster for 6 months, builds gaming PC – “Handles all the games I play”
