Is a refurb a good idea?

[MitchyMan]

I was thinkin of getting a 6600gt from newegg. The refurbs there are about 40 bucks cheaper than the new ones. The new one ran about 170 and the refurbs are about 130. Good idea to save that money or not?

 

[edmundoab]

lets just say if u feel that the price isn't of a good difference,
then why risk that $40 cheaper and you may have to deal with known issues of the item? yes refurb items are recondition to work well again.
but like I said, if its marginally cheaper. pay a little more and rest assured u get a brand new item

 

[Spacecomber]

Just read the forewarnings that NewEgg provides about their refurbished stock carefully. They make it clear that you may be getting just the bare video card (in this case) with no retail box, discs, manual, or other accessories. It may have some milage on it already, as well, though the manufacture, presumably, has done a certain amount of testing to verify that it can be placed into service, again. But, as NewEgg notes, there does tend to be a higher return rate on these refurbished parts, compared to their regular stock.

I think that you need to have this sort of scenario in mind when you try to decide whether the price for a refurbished product sounds like a good deal or not.

I picked up a refurbished Leadtek 6800GT from them for $210 just this week. The price was low enough that I felt I could risk getting a used, bare, OEM card for that amount of money. As it turned out, it came in a retail box with everything still there, and looked just like what you would expect if it weren't a refurbished model. But, there was no way I could know whether I would get that before it arrived.

Space