advice on selling used Mac Pro 1,1 (2006)

[camner]

I just replaced my aging 1,1 with a nice 2010 5,1 (love it!) and it's time to sell the old workhorse, and I'd like a little advice.

The "completed items" on eBay show these going for from about $400 (only 2GB RAM) to $750 (12GB RAM/1TB hard drive).

I've upgraded the video card from the stock 1900XT to the ATI 5770. I have 16GB RAM.

My questions:

1. The 5770 card sells separately on eBay for between $150-$300. Am I better off selling the computer with the old 1900XT card and selling the 5770 separately?

2. What about the RAM? 2x2GB of RAM is selling for about $50-$60? Separately or included?

3. I have lots of choices of hard drives to sell with the unite, ranging from a small 320GB drive to 1TB drives. Any thoughts about this?

Thanks, as always, for the advice for colleagues and experts.

 

[Omnius]

I just replaced my aging 1,1 with a nice 2010 5,1 (love it!) and it's time to sell the old workhorse, and I'd like a little advice.

The "completed items" on eBay show these going for from about $400 (only 2GB RAM) to $750 (12GB RAM/1TB hard drive).

I've upgraded the video card from the stock 1900XT to the ATI 5770. I have 16GB RAM.

My questions:

1. The 5770 card sells separately on eBay for between $150-$300. Am I better off selling the computer with the old 1900XT card and selling the 5770 separately?

2. What about the RAM? 2x2GB of RAM is selling for about $50-$60? Separately or included?

3. I have lots of choices of hard drives to sell with the unite, ranging from a small 320GB drive to 1TB drives. Any thoughts about this?

Thanks, as always, for the advice for colleagues and experts.

As is the rule for selling macs on ebay, parts do better than wholes. The bottom line is that the old mac pros are outclassed by mac minis at this point.

Most people buying the old pros are using them for pet projects, home purpose, and boxes to tinker in. People who need a pro workstation don't buy old tech that is outclassed by lower end consumer products. And people looking for a pet project don't spend an arm and a leg on something that is likely worse than you normal machine.

However, parts are often useful for replacements on machines people are holding on to for a while longer. They may be decent replacement parts for a machine that the existing owner wants a little more time out of. Or a part may be a cheaper upgrade that allows the current owner a little more time to out of so they can stave off paying for the big replacement cost. Some folks are waiting until the 2013 mac pros before they are willing to spend a fortune.

Also, some parts can be used in different year mac pros or customized machines.

A heavily upgraded 2006 mac pro may get a decent price if it has a SSD, 8 cores, and a minimum of 8 gm ram.

the size of used mechanical hard drives themselves is usually an excuse by sellers to increase the price heavily. However, used mechanical HDs are pretty undesirable. Thus buyers are rarely willing to pay a lot more based on HDs despite owners asking a lot more for them. Bottom line theres no real reason to put in anything bigger than a 1Tb (though probably best not to sell with below 250gb).

Honestly though, most people on this forum can attest to seeing the 2x dual core 2.6 ghz 1,1 mac pros with 8gb of ram (1TB or less HD) for $300-400

Even with 8 cores 12gb, a 128gb SSD and a stock gpu, the 1,1/2,1 mac pros are not worth more than 650. It's old tech.

The initial chunk of 300-400 that people pay for is the name and the look. If they get much more inside, they expect it to be there to begin with.

Part it out, get more from your aging machine.

 

[phoenixsan]

I would say.....

1)-Sell the machine with the stock card and sell the upgrade card separately
2)-About the RAM, that will have a good market too. But I cant advise you to sell separately or in the machine. Maybe you test the waters with an auction on it
3)- I will pay a premiun, having the chance of choose a big hard drive. Saying the latter, I will put the best 1 TB HDD I have and try to sell the machine.

So, my quote for the machine with the old XT, a 1 TB HDD and 4 GB RAM would be between $350-500 tops. Good care of the machine, no cosmetic or functional issues can help in the price.

If selling through an online site, factor in shipping costs/fees

 

[camner]

Thanks for the advice. The machine HAS been well cared for, and has no cosmetic or other flaws I'm aware of. But, indeed, it's an old machine that doesn't perform as well as modern, smaller machines.

I'll try the parting out idea and see what happens.

Again, thanks for the $.02 worth.