You might want to skip Newegg's GPU trade-in program

The convenience may be worth it for some.

II.studio/Shutterstock Trading in old hardware makes upgrading easy, but selling your old GPU yourself could leave considerably more money in your pocket.

Newegg's GPU Trade-In program makes upgrading surprisingly painless. Choose an eligible replacement, tell Newegg what old components you have, complete your purchase and the retailer will send you a prepaid UPS label to send your outdated hardware back. Once your trade-in passes inspection, the agreed credit amount is refunded to your original payment method. There is, however, a pretty sizable convenience fee hiding in those numbers.

Those trade-in values can fall well short of what comparable components have recently fetched on eBay, which poses a rather obvious question: How much is it actually worth to avoid the hassle of selling your GPU , CPU or memory yourself?

Newegg That difference is hard to ignore with the RTX 2060 Super in particular. The 8GB card is listed at $60 on Newegg, and a working Zotac RTX 2060 Super sold on eBay for $161.99 on July 13. An Asus Prime RTX 5070 sold for $565 on June 4 compared to Newegg's $400 trade-in, while an RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition fetched $500 on June 26. Newegg's offer is only $380.

Those are individual sales, of course. GPU prices vary by manufacturer, condition, accessories and plain old buyer demand, while selling through eBay also means dealing with marketplace fees and potentially paying for shipping.

Still, there's plenty of breathing room in some of those gaps. That RTX 2060 Super sold for $101.99 more than Newegg's offer before marketplace fees entered the picture. That's a fairly steep price to pay for avoiding an eBay listing. Newegg says it may change its trade-in offers based on market conditions, but the company doesn't say how those values are calculated against prices in the broader used-component market.

To be fair, convenience is where the program makes its case. Newegg handles the shipping with a prepaid UPS label, gives customers 14 days to send their old component and returns rejected hardware without charging for return shipping.

The inspection is thorough, too. Newegg checks the submitted model and serial number, looks at physical damage, rust or corrosion, fan and port functionality, operating temperatures, noise levels and benchmark performance before accepting a trade-in. Once you've shipped your item to Newegg, the trade-in can no longer be canceled. Inspection takes 10 to 15 business days, and it's another three to five days for the credit.

There's another limitation worth knowing: You can't simply send Newegg an old GPU, CPU or memory and ask for cash. A trade-in has to accompany an eligible purchase, such as another component or qualifying gaming PC, and the replacement product must cost more than the trade-in offer.

Traded-in graphics cards and other electronics can also feed into Newegg Refreshed , the retailer's refurbished-electronics program where inspected hardware is resold.

Indexed and credited by AIPROPX. Originating outlet: Engadget. Open at source →