Market Pro show = depressing

[WalkinTarget]

I went to a Market Pro PC parts show at the Timonium Fairgrounds in MD today, and I was just not impressed at all. I hadn't been to one in about 7 years, but I expected to find some decent deals at least .. sucky economy, yanno ? Nope !!! NOT HERE !!

The worst 'deal' I saw was a BFG 7950GT OC card for $270, which was nice ... about TWO YEARS AGO !!!


Put it this way... I found a guy selling his 7950GT used for $75 in a FS/FT forum, so that just blows my mind that someone would be dumb enough and price it at that rate. Keep in mind, that was the worst deal I saw, but nothing was cheap.

What did I want to buy ? I had a specific list, and I mean it was detailed down to the CAS timings on the RAM, but I found only ONE item on my list of 7 things, a Netgear 8 port Gb switch. Show price ? $69 !! Amazon's price (w/ free shippping) ?? $44 !!!

I walked out of there with 2 DVD/CDRW drives ($20) and a small stack of DVD/-RW media. Then ... I got home and went to business ordering !!!

So far, I snagged:

2gb kit of Corsair Dominator HX DDR2-800 RAM - $22
2gb G.Skill DDR2-667 RAM - $26
AMD Athlon 64 LE-1640 2.6 ghz CPU - $36
ATI x850 Pro AGP 256mb video card - $35 (seller also tossed in an SB Audigy HD card plus a stick of Hynix 512mb DDR RAM for free).

Ohhh, I wish it stopped there !! I am currently watching two Ebay auctions for more parts, so this will eventually replenish the shelves of the gear I've sold off over the past 4 months. It was a frustrating trip to the show, but I guess my buying frenzy is now officially sated, as I am letting the credit card cool down for a few weeks until I can sell some more hardware.

Thank you for allowing me to vent, and I trust that your day has been less of a letdown than mine.

[Duke{CLR}]

It's hard to beat online pricing. Which is too bad because there is something about going to show, handling the stuff and talking to people that makes it a better experience. In the end it come down to the bottom line though.

[WalkinTarget]

Yea, I just had high expectations for the whole thing, Duke. That's my fault for thinking there were deals to be had. Its one thing to be a vendor doing this to feed the family, and another to some guy deciding $35 in hand is better than hardware collecting dust on a shelf.

So far, I'm still digging up more of the latter deals today. Only one thing on my list to buy, and that is the above mentioned 8 port switch.

[Duke{CLR}]

Good luck with that.

[Zantheus]

Here is a half decent price on an 8 port GB switch

Newegg.com - TRENDnet TEG-S80TXE 101000Mbps Copper Gigabit Switch 8 x RJ45 4K entries per device MAC Address Table 128KB per Device Buffer Memory - Switches

I know its not a Netgear but it might still do the job

EDIT: Here is 1 on sale right now plus there is a Mail In rebate as well

Netgear 8-Port 10/100/1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet Switch ( GS608NA ) - Gigabit Ethernet Switch - Netgear Networking