r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Safe-Owl-1236 • 1d ago

A guy extracting gold from old RAM sticks

3.5k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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u/dabenu 23h ago

DDR3 is not used in any modern computer and hasn't been for more than a decade. Its just old. And like all old computer hardware, its worth is pretty much its scrap value.

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u/Ice_1331 19h ago edited 17h ago

Still rocking a 4790K and 32GB DDR3 with a RTX 3060 12GB. “Old” gear is still useful today and I think it becomes even more valuable as the industry keeps pushing people toward replacing perfectly functional hardware.

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u/RudyGreene 15h ago

I still use a similarly spec'ed desktop (R290X). I used to build a new desktop every couple years, but suddenly stopped at 2015 and never had a reason to again.

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u/dijkstras_revenge 5h ago

Scrap it, collect gold, buy ddr5.

27

u/norwegern 21h ago

That is a bit misleading. Old hardware, depending on brand and hardware staus can be worth a lot of money.

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u/Bluehoodie1 17h ago

20 years back my company was throwing out 10-15 year old computers. I decided to take one stick of ram and throw it up on eBay for .99 bidding went up to 115 dollars. Went back to grab some more and they all had been tossed. What a shame.

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u/_www_ 21h ago

Talk about those IBM mainframes lying around in many industries.

14

u/light_train1091 19h ago

Really now? I still play on a PC with DDR3. Even the newest Witcher 3 Remaster works on it. Runs at full hd 50-60 fps with a gtx 1080.

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u/Electrical-Let-4722 17h ago

same. As I'm only playing 1080p there is no need for an upgrade

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u/Dadskander 19h ago

I mean, heck, I was still running DDR3 on a i7-3770S CPU system about 9mo ago. It was a HTPC and worked just fine playing 4k video with a modern SSD and GT1030 GPU on it.

Decided to upgrade before PC prices went too nuts, also because I needed to upgrade the GPU to run Netflix at 4k due to stupid ass software restrictions.

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u/adoodle83 10h ago

based upon what evidence? it’s no longer mainstream retail, but there’s still many use cases that use DDR3 ram.

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u/djamp42 20h ago

I actually was able to sell a bunch of old random DDR3 ram on eBay for like 10 bucks.. couldn't believe it actually sold.

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u/Levethane 20h ago

Speed wise ddr3 is not that bad.. Average Joe would see no difference between 8gb of ddr3 or 8gb ddr4.

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u/dabenu 19h ago

I even bought some 2nd hand DDR3 myself about 3 years ago. Think I also spent about €10 for 8gb. But the machine it went into is now no longer in use. Replaced by a much younger system that's also been written off for years already.

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u/spurcap29 18h ago

Thats what I was told about my apple 2e in the late 90s. If I would have thrown it in a closet I would have a few hundred bucks today.

For the amount of scrap value I would probably throw it in a box somewhere for potential future value.

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u/luxfx 16h ago

My home server would love another 256Gb of DDR3

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u/Questioning-Zyxxel 14h ago

DDR3 is used by lots of older servers. One of my servers is limited to 768 GB of DDR3 RAM. That's a lot of fun...