PC Parts from Mining are Super Cheap.
When watching the prices of models that were once popular, they are all incredibly cheap.
Perhaps due to the withdrawal from mining operations, these items are flowing from China to Japan, making the domestic market chaotic. However, as a Japanese person, I believe that expensive items are trustworthy, which is why a market structure has formed where cheap items circulate without being touched. Based on market research in Russia and the US (including social media), product prices experiencing a collapse are cheaper in Japan.
Below, I've listed three cheap items from my research results as a memo.
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The text will be descriptive. Information is current as of 2023/05/23.
Silver Stone SST-ST75F-P 750W Full Modular Power Supply
It might not be widely known, but this power supply was popular back then due to mining demand. The reason for its price collapse is that it was commonly integrated into BTO (Build-to-Order) PCs, making it abundant in the market.
Around 3000 yen used.
New prices for full modular power supplies with 80 Plus Silver certification range from 10,000 to 30,000 yen.
When buying a used full modular power supply, it's important to check if any necessary modular cables are missing.
Ryzen5 2400G
Although a CPU released in 2016, Ryzen was a CPU that AMD, which was struggling at the time, launched with the goal of overthrowing INTEL. It became a hot topic for its significantly low price relative to its performance, even being called a 'price destroyer'.
If you try to buy one, it's 3000-5000 yen used.
Its performance is equivalent to the i5 8500 based on benchmark results, but the Ryzen 2400G is severely undervalued because the used market price for the i5 8500 is 8000 yen.
This is likely also circulating in large quantities due to the dismantling of BTO PCs.
P104-100
This is a graphics card for mining, so it has no video output, but it can be used by outputting video via integrated graphics or another GPU.
The 8GB ROM-flashed version has enhanced performance equivalent to a GTX1070~1080, making it a very usable graphics card.
I feel it offers sufficient cost-effectiveness for both AI applications and video editing.
Its model name, bearing the GPU core name GP104 of the Pascal architecture, is easy to understand.
Approximately 3000 to 7000 yen.
Similarly, RX470 mining graphics cards also exist, and while their watt performance is good, their per-card performance doesn't reach that of the P104, so considering cost-performance, the P104 is better.
It seems that large quantities are flowing out of factories due to Russia's withdrawal from mining, and individual stores in America were also holding large inventories, selling them online for about $90 per card, or around 12,000 yen, but I wonder if anyone is buying them.
Japanese people don't seem to have much interest, which is fortunate because they can be bought cheaply.
Before the crash, they were around 60,000 yen, and I can almost see a future where they might rise to a considerable price again if mining takes off.
SSDs and HDDs
It's always good to have storage. Both are too cheap right now.
You should buy as much as you can. I feel like I can at least say that much.
Regarding subscription-based cloud storage, if prices are raised, you might become afraid of losing your data and end up continuing to pay due to subscription dependency, so it's better to avoid it.
The reason I included HDDs in the heading is that their used prices have been stagnant for the past 2-3 years, and since SSDs and HDDs have different characteristics, I think it's better to choose and buy one based on your specific use case.
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That's all, but especially for power supplies, they don't often circulate in the used market, so if you can get one at this price, I think buying it used is definitely a good idea.
Please note that all of the above are personal opinions, and we do not offer any warranty or support if you purchase based on the information on this site. Please proceed at your own risk.