Don't know what to do with two X58 motherboards.

[CougTek]

I have two X58 motherboards, one new-in-box and another one that's been used for ~6 months. I don't have any CPU to put on them. I could build two relatively modern systems with them (with i7 960 CPUs) as they both have SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 ports (Asus Sabertooth X58 and GigaByte X58-USB3), but they would be hard to sell because a similarly priced SandyBridge system would probably be a better value. I could also put two i7 980 CPU on them, but that would be quite an investment and still would be hard to sell because few people need and are willing to pay for a 6-core system.

I figure I would also lose a lot trying to sell the motherboards alone. Both are worth more than 160$, but I'm not sure I would be able to sell them for more than 100$ each.

But I need to decide how to get rid of them as they'll soon be completely obsolete.

 

[Clocker]

Give the nicer one to me. I'm still on s775 with a q9550. I'll pay for shipping!

 

[Bozo]

Put two systems together for some charity and write them off on your taxes???

 

[Mercutio]

I actually had the same problem and in the same quantity. I managed to buy used CPUs for mine - $150 and $180 for an i7 920 and an i7 940, so now I have two nice, complete systems sitting around waiting for someone to buy them, but the older they get, the less they're worth.

I'm sure that eventually I'll find a place to pawn them off, but I listed them on Craigslist over the Xmas season and had no takers. Those boxes are way too fast to not be used.

 

[CougTek]

Give the nicer one to me. I'm still on s775 with a q9550. I'll pay for shipping!

Don't get me wrong, you're a nice guy. But you must earn at least three times as much as I do, so me giving you a relatively expensive computer part ; not gonna happen. JTR maybe, because I know he also struggles financially, but I don't think that's the kind of system he's looking for.

As for giving it to charity and writing it off my taxes, I already have too many deductibles this year. The store I purchased ended up costing me a lot, too much in fact.

 

[MaxBurn]

Such a weird position to be in to have really good stuff that won't sell. I rather like my UD5, I imagine that USB3 would make a great computer.

I'm all the way out of ebay now, they plus paypal end up taking over 20%. Only really good for not filling landfills, sometimes not even that.

 

[Clocker]

Just kiddin' Coug. My wife could potentially lose her job in the next couple weeks, though. :-(

Seriously though, what would you sell them here for?

 

[snowhiker]

Give the nicer one to me. I'm still on s775 with a q9550. I'll pay for shipping!

That is absolutely state-of-the-art compared to what I got.

 

[Mercutio]

Do you just want board and CPU or a complete rig?

 

[Clocker]

Me? I would not mind finding a full-featured M/B with CPU. IIRC my Q9950 uses DDR-2 so I would new new RAM too, correct. If I were to get anything now I would want something more full featured & with more I/O options (USB + Firewire+eSATA) than what I have now, EP45-UD3L But right now I'm in no position to buy anything until I know my wife's employment situation.

 

[Santilli]

I'm looking for a system, used would be good, and not absurdly expensive. Put a price on these systems and let me think about it.

 

[Mercutio]

I was offering the i7-920 in a system with 8GB RAM, a 1.5TB 7200rpm hard drive, Antec Sonata (the original, adjectiveless model), 430W Seasonic PSU and a Radeon 5750 (1GB DDR5) and either Vista Ultimate or Windows 7 Home Premium for what I thought was a very reasonable $700.

 

[CougTek]

The only forms of payment I can take from you guys would be Paypal or a money order, both of which have significant fees. I don't think my credit card/banking card machine accepts international payments. With the high fees Paypal charges, I don't think it would be worth it, either for me or the buyer, to send a full system. However, just selling the motherboard would be ok. I wouldn't be able (or willing) to match Merc's price for a complete system anyway.

110$ for the NIB GigaByte X58-USB3 if there's anyone interested. Shipping not included, but I wouldn't make a profit on it.

If I don't sell the motherboards, which will probably be the case, I'll probably wait until the next Nvidia GPU generation arrives and assemble Folding@home computers with them, two graphic cards each. Nvidia's next generation GPU is supposed to have greatly increased CUDA performance, so it should be quite a monster for the FAH project.


One question for Merc : why 8GB of RAM on a platform that uses triple-channel memory? Why not put either 6GB or 12GB instead of 8GB?

 

[Mercutio]

Because I pretty much always buy 8GB kits and most people don't need more than that.

 

[Santilli]

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Produc...rypageHorizontalTop|PopularProductsInCategory

I can see why moving it might be difficult.

 

[Mercutio]

That machine needs $200 worth of rebates to be $100 more expensive.
And my box has better overall hardware anyway (quality PSU, real graphics hardware, nice chassis) vs. that one having a bunch of RAM the end user isn't going to need and a BD burner they'll never use.

 

[Santilli]

Didn't see the rebate part. Don't trust any of that stuff.

Anyone compared the 2600 vs. the 920, speed wise?

 

[Mercutio]

The 2600 is about 30% faster. It's quite significant, but for the vast majority of users, it's just going to be more time the CPU spends idling. The only way I can really push any i7 in a significant way is with media encoding, and that isn't exactly an everyday desktop-user task.

 

[Santilli]

Compared the 2600 to 920 for folding @ Home? My 940 is running 100% as I type this.
Power consumption is also an issue, since my electric bill went from 48 a month to 120 this month. It's been really cold, at least for me in Kali.