What's wrong with this "new" $498 Amazon Gaming PC ?

[trs96]

The Alarco Old yet New Gaming PC
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It's overpriced by about 350 dollars or more. This is the number 27 best seller in Tower computers on Amazon.com right now. Some young gamers are getting scammed by this seller that makes older, used PC hardware look like a new, filled with RGB bling Core i5 Intel system. There's nothing wrong with buying a used Core i5 on Ebay and making a low cost gaming PC. When this AMZ seller puts it in a new case with RGB it tricks unsuspecting buyers into paying way too much it's a legal scam they can get away with. It will play some modern games at low settings. The scam is that it's possible to build a new Intel 4 core 8 thread gaming system with a GTX 1650 4GB for not much more than $550 today.

Intel Core i5-2400 3.10 Ghz (sell for $24 shipped on Ebay.com)
B75 LGA 1155 Motherboard
Video Card NVIDIA Gforce GTX 650 1GB -- 2012 - $35 today much too low in Vram to game.
DVI, VGA and HDMI Ports
Ethernet port + WiFi
500W Power supply (mystery PSU that may go up in flames)
3 RGB 120mm Fans with remote control
Tempered Glass Side panel
RAM 8GB DDR3
HDD 1TB
WINDOWS 10 Pro

I'd estimate they are taking used CPUs, Ram and motherboards out of older business PCs.
Buying refurb GTX 650s and possibly even using refurb 1TB hard drives. Would be interesting
to buy one and see exactly what they are using. I'd say that these young and ignorant gamers
are paying about 50 dollars per each new RGB fan they get. When wholesale cost is $4.00 each.

Even paying Ebay prices, the cost for the internals minus RGB fans could be around 100 USD. The cheap case is probably bought in large volumes by the seller for possibly $25 each. Quite a premium that Alarco is charging for what is basically an 8-9 year old PC.

Here's the "Alarmco" seller page on Amazon. They put the same internals in all these different cases.
https://www.amazon.com/Electronics-Alarco/s?rh=n:172282,p_89:Alarco

If they were to at least put in a new GTX 1650 4GB the cost would be slightly more justified but even then not a good deal for the buyer.

 

[trs96]

I took a glance at Ebay to see what you could buy the internals (equivalent) for this PC for. Came to a little under $100 plus shipping. It's so easy to build a modern PC from parts but I guess it's easier for some to pay $498 and have it shipped to them with Windows pre-installed. The Ebay prices are "buy it now" rather than bidding so a buyer could even do much better than this.

A new GTX 1650 4GB would be a much better choice for a low cost E-Sports gaming system today.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BNRR5SJ/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

 

[UtterDisbelief]

I took a glance at Ebay to see what you could buy the internals (equivalent) for this PC for. Came to a little under $100 plus shipping. It's so easy to build a modern PC from parts but I guess it's easier for some to pay $498 and have it shipped to them with Windows pre-installed. The Ebay prices are "buy it now" rather than bidding so a buyer could even do much better than this.

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A new GTX 1650 4GB would be a much better choice for a low cost E-Sports gaming system today.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BNRR5SJ/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

It's probably that picture of the case with it's illuminated fans that fools the unwary. Looks very modern and up-to-date when the reality is something completely different.

 

[trs96]

Here's a gaming PC seller that actually gives decent value for the money with new hardware. I often see their PCs on the best seller list on www.Newegg.com The 2060 of course won't work in a hackintosh. I don't think they sell any AMD graphics systems but I could be wrong there.

https://skytechgaming.com/product-category/desktops/

Look at this Ryzen 8 core system they will build for $1800 with an RTX 3080 GPU. Not bad for a high end gamer. It's mostly impossible to buy a new RTX 3080 anywhere near the retail price these days.