What is this computer worth?

Factual Questions
1

It’s a gateway roughly 5 years old. Specs are:

3.0 ghz cpu (I think it’s an intel)
RAGE PRO TURBO graphics card
500 megs of ram
120 GB hard drive
DVD rom and CD Burner as seperate drives
no wireless internet
Keyboard, mouse
15 inch flatscreen display, not widescreen (It’s a gateway screen, I don’t know much more than that, resolution upto 1200*1000 I believe)
3 speaker system with SUB

I can’t get any more info now because It’s my parent’s computer, but a ballpark estimate is all I’m after. The hard drive was recently replaced so it’s brand new. Also any thoughts on what the monitor is worth?

Thanks all

2

Oh and it has a sound blaster audigy sound card.

3

Do you know what model it is? You can look up the blue book to see what it is worth.

You could also try selling it on EBay. There are a lot of computers out there, but assuming it is running, you might fetch a couple hundred dollars, tops.

4

I usually poke around on ebay to get a general price of what something is worth. A very quick look would indicate that your computer is probably worth about $350 to $400. 15 inch flat panel monitors don’t seem to be worth much, about $25 to $30.

5

Can’t be 5 years old because Intel didn’t have a 3 gigahertz cpu till 2003 (I think). I’m not sure AMD has released a 3ghz chip to this day, though their model numbers long ago passed 3000. CPU clockspeed hasn’t been very useful as a stand-in for processing power for quite a long while now anyways. I also would be very surprised if a 15 inch lcd monitor supported any resolution above 1024x768.

6

Is the monitor an LCD or a CRT? I know you said “flatscreen”, but that’s a bit ambiguous. I’ve usually heard “flatscreen” to refer to CRT monitors with a flat screen, instead of the usual curved kind, but now and then I’ll see somebody use it to describe an LCD.

7

LCD display

I’m pretty sure it was at 3 ghz but I could be wrong.

Wow these machines depreciate fast

8

Yup you can pretty much always buy the year old stuff for less than half the price and still have a kick ass machine capable of playing all the cool stuff. Then you can spend the rest on other stuff you might need like furniture.

9

Computer definitions:

State of the art: Any computer you can’t afford.
Obsolete: Any computer you own.
Microsecond: The time it takes for your state of the art computer becomes an obsolete computer.

(old computer joke)

10

If you’re upgraded to Windows XP, right-clicking My Computer and choosing Properties will show you the cpu speed.

11

Sounds like a fairly current model, actually. Apart from the graphics card. Are you looking for insurance value or resale value?

12

resale value

It’s my parents computer, I’d like to exchange it for a laptop for them, preferably an apple one because I think it may be easier for them to use.

13

When you’re trying to sell an old computer check the current market value of a comparable new one. Looking at today’s ads, someone can buy a desktop computer with capabilities equal or higher than yours for under $500. Discounting for age your computer will be worth at most $200-$300. Of course, this is probably the best time of the year to buy a new computer because of the back-to-school deals out there.

My personal suggestion is to keep your parent’s desktop and just buy them a laptop to supplement the desktop. The desktop is still very serviceable; the laptop provides computing mobililty.