Question At what point is your old CPU garbage?

CuriousMike

Diamond Member
Feb 22, 2001
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I was just throwing out an old Antec case / guts - I even left an ASUS B350 mobo in it.
I pulled out the Ryzen 1700, the 250GB SSD and the 16GB of DDR4 ram.

I have no idea why I kept those parts - the Ryzen 1700 is useless, the 250GB SSD is too small / useless and the ram... well... I have two other Ryzen 5x00 mini-itx builds that are already maxed on RAM.

But yet I kept these pieces.
I seem to always keep my old pieces ... they just sit in the garage for about 10 years until they're finally recycled.

What do you do with your old hardware? Do you hold onto it "just in case" ?
 

CuriousMike

Diamond Member
Feb 22, 2001
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Well, how many people with a compatible motherboard are using something weaker?
Anything in the 2xxx and above will be faster for most other things than the 1700.
I guess my question could be construed with an obvious "sell it" - and maybe if it was a 3/5xxx series I could see doing that.

The RAM is an interesting one - I do remember wanting to upgrade an old DDR3 machine sometime after DDR4 had been out -- and finding reasonably priced DDR3 was really hard.
 

FlawleZ

Member
Oct 13, 2016
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Well, how many people with a compatible motherboard are using something weaker?
Anything in the 2xxx and above will be faster for most other things than the 1700.
I guess my question could be construed with an obvious "sell it" - and maybe if it was a 3/5xxx series I could see doing that.

The RAM is an interesting one - I do remember wanting to upgrade an old DDR3 machine sometime after DDR4 had been out -- and finding reasonably priced DDR3 was really hard.
The compatible motherboard you're asking about you threw in the trash. If it were me, I would have sold or given away that 1700+B350+16GB to someone who could use it.
 

Lil'John

Senior member
Dec 28, 2013
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Depends... not every task I use my computers for require the latest or greatest.

I do a bit of fun stuff on this i5-4690k with 16G ram with two 240GB ssds.

I run a KabyLake pentium on another machine.

I still rock a pair of Skull Canyon NUCs.

I've got a small 128G ssd to get one of my low end NUCs running videos(NUC5i3)

FWIW, I rocked a Sandy Bridge 2600K with 16GB doing dev work for close to 10 years:eek:
 

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
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I would have dropped in a newer CPU, such as 5600G, and sold it as a bundle. Or even as is. Keep in mind the motherboard has value added if you activated Windows 10 on it, as the license is attached to the motherboard. So a customer could buy it, wipe SSD, fresh install Windows 10 and not need to worry about buying a new Windows license. Or you could do a fresh install yourself before selling it.

Bottom line is, I would not throw out perfectly good hardware, especially the motherboard, considering how useful anything AM4 is now with how it can take up to a 5950X.
 

Hotrod2go

Senior member
Nov 17, 2021
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I think you're looking at the hardware from a narrow perspective. You'd be shocked how many people are using a CPU that's inferior to the 1700. A lot of people still use systems with less than 16GB of RAM too. I know people still using i5 2500K desktops lol
I have several desktops here & one is 12yrs old. Oldest one does what I want it to do & runs win 10 just fine. Computers are a bit like cars, if they get you from A to B, then that's all that matters.
The OP should so a spot of research on ebay & be prepared to be shocked at what some will bid or buy when its about a decade old already!
 

scannall

Golden Member
Jan 1, 2012
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I have several desktops here & one is 12yrs old. Oldest one does what I want it to do & runs win 10 just fine. Computers are a bit like cars, if they get you from A to B, then that's all that matters.
The OP should so a spot of research on ebay & be prepared to be shocked at what some will bid or buy when its about a decade old already!
I still fire up my Apple ][+ once in a while for a Loderunner fix... >.>
 
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burninatortech4

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Jan 29, 2014
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Nothing ryzen based is useless, especially not an 8 core. I have the weakest ryzen based 6w dual core they make in a laptop I use everyday.

Even many pre-ryzen AMD's are still fine for some light use cases especially with linux.

Pre-phenom/core2 is when I'd start to deem them useless.
3015e?
 
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SPBHM

Diamond Member
Sep 12, 2012
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I have a bunch of Core 2 Duos working everyday in here;
my main PC is a Sandy Bridge i5;
Ryzen 1700 is a beast, far better than what most people are using.

Atom 230 is kind of useless I think.
 
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burninatortech4

Senior member
Jan 29, 2014
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Yup. I have the 3015e in an Ideapad 1 11". It's just acceptable (very sluggish on start) but still a significant upgrade from Stoney Ridge.

The main issue with it is 4GB single channel 1600mhz (yea you read that right) DDR4.
 
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Dannar26

Senior member
Mar 13, 2012
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Just to further drive the point home, I have multiple PCs in my house. I have spread the joys (and curses) of PC gaming to the rest of my family. As you might expect, I usually have the best hardware, giving what I replace as hand-me-downs to the kids/wife.

My wife is driving an i5 4690k + R9 290 + 32GB DDR3 + 256 2.5 in SATA SSD + 1 TB HDD. My kids play minecraft and roblox, but have newer gear.

I clicked on this thread because I often wonder the same thing...when do we move on, right? But holy heck dude, IMHO Gen 1 Ryzen is way too new to discard out of hand. I think the wife's rig may be on the way out as it occasionally has some POST issues. I haven't really sat down to troubleshoot it, and I wonder if I care enough to at this point.
 

Spydermag68

Platinum Member
Apr 5, 2002
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I still have my Skylake i7-6700k as my main computer. I am currently buying parts for my next build, a Zen4. My old computer will be used to burn my DVDs for my plex server
 

AnitaPeterson

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2001
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Reading such threads pains me... as some of you may remember, I was involved some years ago in a charity sending computers to Eastern Europe.
That CPU is still OK, the SSD is perfect for an operating system and some programs, and that wasted motherboard could have made a difference in the life of someone less fortunate.

Dear god... :sob: