Is it worth buying second hand hardware?

We can all face the problem of wanting to use an application or a game that our current hardware cannot run correctly, so you will see your wallet and realize that you do not have enough money to go to your store. Trust, but what about the second-hand hardware market? Is it worth buying used hardware to save money?

The value of the second-hand hardware market and its risks

The second-hand market is something that many users may have turned to throughout their lives, but buying a PC or its used parts is often not as good an idea as buying a used car, for example, especially if we don't put very careful and we don't know exactly what we are looking for and why. Buying second-hand hardware is usually not as easy as going to a car dealer where they can advise you in the best way and offer their guarantees.

We recommend reading our article about everything you need to know about hardware

The big problem with buying second-hand hardware is the absence of a guarantee in most cases, since purchases are usually made in forums and between individuals. A motherboard may look flawless and work flawlessly, but it can stop in a week or ten years - you never know when it will fail. There are parts like the chassis, the heatsink, or the fans that are much less likely to fail, but they are also usually the cheapest items so there is little use of second hand for them.

In contrast, a second-hand power supply can be a source of problems, since it can fail soon and take another expensive and delicate component with them. Motherboards and graphics cards are also hardware components that tend to fail quite a bit. In contrast, RAM and SSDs are quite reliable components when buying second-hand, provided that in the case of SSDs we make sure that they have not been "burned" by writing large amounts of data. The best way to check the status of an SSD or hard drive is to request a capture of CirstalDiskInfo, so you will see both the amount of data written and the hours of use they have.

The other problem is Moore's Law, which establishes, approximately, that the power doubles every 18 months, although in recent years this law has ceased to be fulfilled. That may be an exaggeration almost in the 2020s. Still, a 500-euro PC today is more powerful and has more useful features than an 800-euro PC sold years ago. Many second-hand sellers will try to take advantage of the less expert, claiming that they are selling you for 200 euros, something that once cost 500 euros, when in reality it would not be worth 150 euros now.

Some good options to buy second hand hardware

A good option when buying second-hand hardware can be to go to a physical store that you know is trustworthy, the bad thing that they are usually very scarce, and in many cases they are many km away. In my case, for example, I have to travel about 70 km to find a store that sells second-hand hardware with its guarantee, something quite uncomfortable.

If we keep thinking about good options to buy second-hand hardware, we inevitably stumbled upon the reconditioned products from Amazon, not long ago I saw a Logitech G613 keyboard for a price of 59 euros (worth 150 new), a great purchase if you don't mind that your layout is German. All Amazon refurbished carry a 2-year warranty and a 30-day return period, so there will be no problem if you are not satisfied with your purchase. If you are a little careful, it is possible to find motherboards or graphics cards with a discount of up to 30-50%, which is not bad at the time of saving. Refurbished Amazon may not be as cheap as the offers you can see on other online platforms, but it is certainly the safest option, since you will always have the support of the company's excellent after-sales service.

Finally, we can resort to forums specialized in buying and selling second-hand hardware, we will not have the guarantee of a store like Amazon, but if we go to a trusted site and deal with trusted users there should be no problems. The important thing in these cases is to know where to go and who to buy, a novice user may offer you a better price than a veteran, but you will also run more risk, you decide that it is more convenient for you.

As a conclusion, we can say that buying second-hand hardware can be something very interesting to improve our PC or mount a new one, but we must be very careful when choosing where and from whom to buy, since it can be very expensive for wanting save us a few euros.

What do you think about buying second hand hardware? We would like to know your opinion on this topic, you can leave a comment.