PC Master Race

I agree! In addition to hard drives I'd also rather buy motherboards new, since a lot of electronics are directly exposed, and I trust only me and myself in adequate handling of such delicate stuff. XD

Power supplies are largely fine as long as they’re not really old.

Oh, I didn't think about PSUs in my comment. Good thought.

There was a period where a lot of bad capacitors went into PSUs and there was a rash of PSU and motherboard failures sometime around 2000. I remember some failed caps causing devices to die

I think I had a video card, a motherboard, and a PSU go. At the time, I thought that capacitors just must not last very long, didn't find out about the fact that it was a specific issue with some capacitors until years later. But, yeah, today, that'd be pretty ancient, and I haven't seen that for some time.

searches

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

The capacitor plague was a problem related to a higher-than-expected failure rate of non-solid aluminium electrolytic capacitors between 1999 and 2007, especially those from some Taiwanese manufacturers,[1][2] due to faulty electrolyte composition that caused corrosion accompanied by gas generation; this often resulted in rupturing of the case of the capacitor from the build-up of pressure.

High failure rates occurred in many well-known brands of electronics, and were particularly evident in motherboards, video cards, and power supplies of personal computers.

A 2003 article in The Independent claimed that the cause of the faulty capacitors was due to a mis-copied formula. In 2001, a scientist working in the Rubycon Corporation in Japan stole a mis-copied formula for capacitors' electrolytes. He then took the faulty formula to the Luminous Town Electric company in China, where he had previously been employed. In the same year, the scientist's staff left China, stealing again the mis-copied formula and moving to Taiwan, where they created their own company, producing capacitors and propagating even more of this faulty formula of capacitor electrolytes.[3]

I do think that one issue with PSUs is that power demands of high-end CPUs and GPUs have also increased. If the PSU is rated for your system, then no problem, but I'd want to make sure.

Also, PSUs have fans, and while I don't think I've ever had a PSU fan go, thinking back...fans do have moving parts and are IME one of the more-prone-to-see-failures components. I have definitely had CPU fans and case fans die

start making noise and ultimately seize up, as the bearings wear out.

Cases basically can’t fail unless you destroy it on purpose.

True, though I've also had cases come with a lot of parts, especially if you have toolless mounting or something. That's one where I personally have always thrown out my old ATX cases, though it's not as if they're nonfunctional or anything. I even have the leftover parts, but they're in some box somewhere.

But I'll concede that that's probably just me. I mean, if someone wanted to, they could probably do fine with an old case.

Air coolers don’t go bad.

The aluminum/copper/etc heatsink itself will last forever, but for about the past 30 years, most will have had a fan on them. Now, granted, it's also almost certainly replaceable, and it's not hard to get new fans, but the fan can die.

Liquid coolers will eventually need maintenance, but as long as they’re not really old should be fine.

Huh. Well, that sounds good. I've been curious to see how these do. I'm on the first system I've used with an AIO liquid cooler. So far, it's been remarkably quiet, had a lot of cooling capacity, and not had a huge amount of mass hanging off the motherboard

I'm glad that I got it, even if it cost more

I but I have wondered about pump longevity.

Used liquid coolers might be interesting, as long as one can get the appropriate mounting bits, haven't been thrown out. I remember that mine came with a bunch of brackets and such for various sockets. Do need to deal with cleaning off old thermal paste, though.