Two recent Reddit posts, covered by Wccftech, describe shoppers finding valuable PC hardware for a fraction of its market price at secondhand stores. In one case, a Redditor in the Netherlands found a Kingston Fury 32 GB (2x16 GB) DDR5 memory kit rated at 6000 MT/s at a local thrift store for just €12.50 (about $14.40). The same kit currently retails for about $600 on Amazon, meaning the buyer paid roughly 2.4% of its current price. According to the report, similar 32 GB DDR5 kits at that speed typically sell for $400-$450, though this particular kit is priced higher than average. The kit was described as "open-boxed" rather than brand new.

The report notes that DDR5 memory prices have risen sharply over the past year, with this kit having sold for under $150 before what the article calls the "RAMpocalypse." It adds that DDR5 kits are now selling for up to five times their usual rates, and that this volatility has also contributed to higher GPU prices.

In a separate incident, a different Redditor found an ASUS GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB graphics card at a Goodwill store in the United States, grabbing it for $2 just as a store worker was putting it on the shelf. The card was reported to be in good working condition. The buyer tested it in Cyberpunk 2077, where it reportedly delivered nearly 30 FPS on average at 1080p with AMD FSR 2.1 set to Balanced, and system specifications confirmed the card had 4 GB of VRAM.

The GTX 1050 Ti, part of Nvidia's Pascal lineup, launched nearly 10 years ago and was known as a budget-friendly option at the time. The article notes the card is now hard to find at major retailers, with used units typically costing around $100 when available. It states the card is not a strong performer for demanding modern games but remains suitable for casual titles, esports, and older games, where it can reportedly reach around 60 FPS or more on medium to high settings.

Both reports frame these finds as rare exceptions rather than the norm, noting that while it can be difficult to find PC components at thrift or Goodwill stores at all, doing so occasionally yields steep discounts. The coverage suggests checking local secondhand stores as a way to potentially find cheap hardware, while acknowledging that such deals require luck given how uncommon these finds are.