this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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PC Master Race

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Components: new or second hand? (programming.dev)
submitted 6 days ago by emotional_soup_88@programming.dev to c/pcmasterrace@lemmy.world
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I recently bought 16GB (2x8GB) of 3000 MHz DDR4 RAM second hand for my server so that I could swap out the 32GB (2x16GB) of 3200 MHz DDR4 RAM and put them into my new gaming rig.

Final hardware config: https://pastebin.com/3uFXuPht

Now I just have to figure out whether I want to get another external soundcard for my gaming rig or if I can live with switching the USB cable back and forth between the two PCs or if I can get used to control the volume with software. I really like hardware knobs though...

Anyway...

What - if anything - do you insist on buying new and what do you buy second hand and why? Personally, I could buy any component second hand, provided I'm allowed to run my own test on it first.

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[–] orochi02@feddit.org 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Why tf u need a soundcard for a server?

[–] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 3 points 5 days ago

Great question! (Trying to sound like an AI client.)

I also use my server to stream music from Tidal. Connection: PC -> USB soundcard^[https://tascam.com/us/product/us-1x2hr/] -> five meter cable^[the audio only version of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_connector] -> mixer^[https://www.soundcraft.com/en/products/notepad-8fx] -> speakers^[https://www.adam-audio.com/en/ax-series/a5x/].

PC area:

Media consumption area:

Yesterday, I tried to cut out the soundcard by connecting the RCA cable to the rear audio port of the motherboard, but alas, I had accidentally bought an unbalanced RCA to 3.5mm converter, which introduced a lot of noise.

The reason I want my server rig to be my music player is power efficiency. It idles at around 58 watts and streams music at around 70 watts. My freakin' gaming rig idles at around 100 watts, probably because of the 3080...

With all that said, I'm still considering just stopping listening to music with my server. After all, it's only a few bucks difference.