Let’s play a game :
With some spare part you have somewhere in the boxes, what can you build “best” and what’s missing ?
I’ll start. With unused parts in my boxes I can build :
• Core I7 3770k on Sabertooth motherboard
• 16 GB of RAM
• GTX 770 as video card.
• 4K Asus screen
• Creative sound card
Missing :
• The case
• PSU
• Hard drives/SSD

I don't keep many spares. My old GTX 1080 went to my brother. The only things that are not in my main PC right now are a bunch of 2400 MT/s DDR4 RAM and an i7-5820K (which, together with a half-dead motherboard, is at a repair shop, but I should probably get them back). I also have an HD 6770 that can't even output more than 1080p due to being the non-DP variant.

There is still an old Intel core2quad with board, RAM, PSU and a crappy 1080p60 TFT lying around here. That system would be slower than a current i3 today. The monitor is probably good to keep as spare. But i should really get rid of the other stuff. Maybe collecting all the crap in an actual cardboard box and then giving that away for free is a good idea.

Your old hardware sounds pretty usable though. It's a shame that is is just collecting dust...

@kamen Yeah my 980 GTX went to a friend too. Only 770 remaning.

And I do have couple of unused hard drives, but they are so old, weren't powered for at least 12 years. I don't even remember what I have on them

I can't build shit cause I sell my spare parts so they don't fill up my storage.

@Oktokolo

Well, my linux server is runing on core i5 of the same generation.

Why ?

because just the thought of reinstalling linux and configuring every thing is insane, and i5 for plex and small dev sql server is more than enough

@NoToJavaScript You don't have to reinstall. And if you didn't strip down your kernel you don't even have to recompile.

But as i said: If you don't have a use for it, just give it to someone else. It has been made, so it should be used.

@Oktokolo I would try, but scared.

2 days ago I bought a 2.5Gb nic for this linux machine.

It took me 6 hours in total to make it actually work !

And mind, no drivers needed, kernel was already supporting the nic.

Si change CPU + motherboard + where disks are connected physiclly, I would say would take me a whole weekend lol.

Edit : As to give it to some one, half my friends are on mac, other half already have thier configs.

Even my mother already has AMD Ryzen 5.

My granbdmother is running laptop woith core i5 from 3 years ago.

Noone to give it to

@NoToJavaScript I know it sounds pretty novel, almost absurd maybe - and please don't burn me at the stake... But in theory, you could just sell it on a platform like ebay.

@Oktokolo True, but not worth it. Old cpus/motherboards are not selling even 25% of initial price. And I don't really need extra 200-300$.

I would rather find an application for it ;p maybe custom script to manage kitty liter box

@NoToJavaScript You could also donate it to an organization or people who are worse off than you.

Or just wait some more years and do that then. It probably will still be a good machine as the days of insane performance gains each decade seem to be over now...

I have a spare motherboard, an old HDD, and the cooling unit I ripped off a 1070.

I can make a motherboard with a hard drive and some extra fans that don't work.

hm.

i could probably put together a pair of working earbuds.
but i would probably be missing one of the rubber caps to put on them.

@Oktokolo build a Linux Server with it.

@Oktokolo the next move of performance comes from Software optimisations and cleanups.

@Oktokolo Ok, I decided to try.

So, just to be fair, right now only 1 system drive is pluged in and 2 HDDs are off. Just for testing.

After initial battle with whatever fsck is, to my bigest suprise, it booted on new hardware without any problems.

And even the 2.5Gb card is workinmg, have the same IP and I have acess in SSH.

Here, work in progress

@NoToJavaScript Fsck (abbrevation for "file system check") checks file systems for errors and can also fix some of them. If you had to battle it, it probably found something...

is this a hidden flex?