A Redditor has shared a lucky catch they scored on their local marketplace, where an unaware seller sold a damaged Z690 motherboard filled with four M.2 SSDs. Bought for $50 (£37), the board contained two 2TB SSDs plus two 4TB SSDs, currently valued at around £790.
The story begins as a Redditor going by the name R550MAGIC2 was surfing the marketplace when they spotted an MSI Pro Z690-A WiFi motherboard with populated M.2 slots, at $50. They contacted the seller, who reportedly seemed unaware of what they had on hand, indicating that they were only trying to sell the board below eBay prices, presumably to speed up the procedure. The Redditor immediately agreed on a meet-up time, about half-an-hour drive, which is reasonable for such a catch.
After getting home and removing the heatsinks, our lucky enthusiast found four M.2 SSDs – and not any SSDs – of 2TB capacity and above, with some even running at Gen 4 speeds. Specifically, they found one Intel SSD 670p 2TB, one Corsair Force Series MP600 2TB, plus two Western Digital WD-Black SN850X 4TB, all in working condition. “This is a very welcome surprise in these horribly priced pc parts time,” they said. A statement I agree with, considering that the total value of these drives is around £790, based on current brand-new pricing for all but the Intel SSD, which is no longer available new.
- Intel SSD 670p 2TB: a DRAM-less PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD reaching 3,500MB/s using QLC NAND, launched at £300 and is now found around £120.
- Corsair Force Series MP600 2TB: a PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD reaching 4,950MB/s using 3D TLC NAND, launched at £380 and is now found at around £170.
- Western Digital WD-Black SN850X 4TB: a PCIe 4.0 x4 SSD reaching 7,300MB/s using 3D TLC NAND, launched at £700 and is now found at around £500.
If we want to be meticulous, we can also add the price of the SSD heatsinks. Three of these are Sabrent Rocket NVMe heatsinks, sold £20 each, plus a cheap £1 basic AliExpress SSD heatsink in red. The motherboard has no value since repairing the bent pins is not guaranteed.
Understandably, the entire post could be fake, but since scoring this kind of deal isn’t that uncommon, I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Some comments even theorised that the motherboard could have been stolen from somewhere and that the seller didn’t know what they had on hand, which is also a possibility. Either way, it’s not the buyer’s role to run an investigation, and besides, the heatsinks could have been hiding damaged M.2 SSDs or cheap 128GB drives.
