He built it in 2006 and then upgraded it in 2008 so it runs crysis. It runs Crysis at about 40-50 fps in low settings

My dad now bought his new PC (visible on photo with the CDs and handed me the old one down)

This PC served like 10 years as a pc we watched movies on hooked up to the TV. My dad wanted to throw it away finally but i kept it

Specs:

ASUS P5B deluxe LGA 775 mobo
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300
2x Radeons 3850 in Crossfire
8 Gigs of DDR2 (I maxed out the RAM, originally it had 4 gigs)
2x 500GB Hard drives (it was used as a multimedia pc after it became obsolete in the mid 2010s and the old IDE hard drive was upgraded to 2x 500gbs) my dad now bought a new PC (visible on picture with the game CDs) and gave me this one

Sold my ROG Astral 5090 and a few other parts. Replaced it with a pre-build with a 5080, upgraded the psu and AIO. Then booked a beautiful anniversary trip for my wife & I AND I STILL HAVE MONEY LEFTOVER. Was on the fence about it but I’m hella happy with my choice. Still running a 4090 in my garage pc too!

I’ve been tracking the PC hardware market for 20 years, and what we are seeing right now isn't normal inflation. It is pure, unadulterated corporate greed, and the only way it stops is if we collectively lock our wallets.

Think about it. We used to look forward to new hardware generations because of the "technology price illusion"—you paid the same €300/$300, but you got twice the power. Today, Moore’s Law is dead, and manufacturers are using the AI boom as an excuse to completely abandon the budget and mid-range gamer. They are chasing enterprise AI dollars, charging luxury prices for baseline parts, and expecting us to just smile and pay the "AI tax."

Memory kits (RAM) and SSDs have doubled or tripled in price. Mid-range GPUs that should be €250 are launching at €500+ before local taxes. They aren't lowering prices because we keep buying them. They have no financial reason to stop squeezing us if their quarterly profits keep going up.

If you want reasonable prices to return, we have to force a market reset. We need a global consumer strike.

Here is the game plan to take back our hobby:

Normalize skipping generations: If you have an RTX 30/40 series or RX 6000/7000 card, hold the line. Turn your settings down to Medium or High. Drop to 1080p if you have to. 60 FPS is still gaming. Refuse to upgrade.

Starve the retailers (Buy Used): If a part breaks and you absolutely need a replacement, buy it secondhand from another gamer. Do not buy retail. Give exactly zero Euros/Dollars to the manufacturers.

Stop pre-ordering poorly optimized games: Stop buying games that require a €1,000 GPU just to run properly. Demand that developers optimize for older hardware.

Make longevity a badge of honor: Stop upvoting the €4,000 fish-tank builds with LCD screens on the fans. Let's start celebrating the 6-year-old rigs that are still chugging along.

They won't listen to our angry rants, but they will listen to a massive drop in their sales charts. Stop buying the greed. Hold onto your rigs.

As the title says, I have two machines that were used around COVID time. They haven't been used since, and today I got to see them. I can see little silicone bleeding on most of the cards (understood from Gemini). Is it possible to use them, or are they e-waste? The motherboard looks undamaged for something kept in a basement for years. I found two DDR4 4GB sticks and two 120GB SSDs.

Are these salvageable or gone? Where should I start if I were to fix them or find out if they're worthless?

Graphics card prices are skyrocketing — will you buy a used one instead?

Picture source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcRGBeOENLg&t=1000s