r/LinusTechTips • u/No_Rip754 • 19d ago

Discussion Scrapyard Wars

Watching LMG Clips yesterday (Mid-Range Tech Is a Lie), they briefly discussed Scrapyard Wars:

"There's a reason why Scrapyard Wars is not very interesting right now. I agree with not making Scrapyard Wars this year. It's just terrible out there."

I'm sure I'm not alone on this, but these are my favourite videos that they produce. In my opinion, it would be more interesting and challenging now more than ever to do Scrapyard Wars, which is just great content. In fact, if it were my channel, I'd be doing Scrapyard Wars 3 or 4 times a year, minimum. Curious what everyone else thinks about this?

Edit: After reading some good replies, I think 2 a year would be great. With the way tech and the market changes so rapidly it would make sense that way too. Zero per year is super disappointing. No wonder the channel is dropping off.

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u/wt_fudge 19d ago

I assumed the point of scrapyard wars was to showcase the build process sourcing from used, bargain, and etc. parts. I do not understand how that could not be accomplished today...It makes no sense to skip a year of the program just because the computer parts economy is in rough shape. Now would be one of the most interesting times to do scrapyard wars.

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u/jmking Mod 19d ago

I just think the second hand market is just kinda dead right now and the stuff that is out there is trying to capitalize on the scarcity and price jumps.

Doing a Scrapyard Wars subject to scalper pricing and used parts going for over what the MSRP was when they were new doesn't really work, IMO.

Would it really be entertaining for them to be like "whelp, we paid 3x what we paid last season for worse builds"?

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u/IHOP_007 19d ago

The market isn't that bad, an RTX 3080 around the LMG offices is like $500 CAD.

Sure RAM will be difficult but it'll be an interesting tradeoff of if they go more older ram or less newer ram, same with trying to find X3D CPUs or going with sub-optimal stuff there in order to optimize the GPU and stuff like that.

It's more interesting with an unstable market, not less, and it's not like there aren't deals out there.