Recently while checking ebay for a reasonable server in the $200-300 range with a Nehalem+ CPU and at least 24-32GB of RAM, I found something much better.

For $90+$57 shipping and the mere inconvenience of not coming with a front panel, I got

• 24GB of RAM ($250 by itself!)
• Xeon W3520 2.66GHz 4C 8T, still able to obliterate most homelab loads, $15-30 depending on how dodgy a listing you look at
• A Quadro 2000, ~$60 by itself
• A DVD drive (~$5? But still occasionally handy)
• Really good condition inside the case, including motherboard and fans and cables
• Included SATA cable (nice of them to not take it out)
• Lots of nice bubble wrap

I think I had seen the listing within a few hours of posting. There had already been 3 offers (I suppose even on a deal this good you can lowball) so I went right for the “Buy it now” as it was a good seller and the post was very clear that the workstation worked and had 6x4GB of RAM.

When on the hunt for a computer on ebay (usually an off-lease or surplus workstation, desktop, or server; but sometimes also laptops) this is what I do:

• Put in the general term like “optiplex”, “workstation”, or “i7-4800mq”
• See what the best match results are like, especially in terms of how sellers title the listings
• Sort by price+shipping, lowest first
• Put in more terms if there is a lot of junk (like optiplex yielding pages of small parts before the desktops). Usually to get only systems putting in something like “core i” or “4GB” works.
• Look at some results until they get out of the price range I want