Gregory's Server
Oh! Oh! Completely forgot!
If we're talking PCs, LEARN TO BUY USED!!!
Because PC is such a flexible platform and spare parts are so readily available, the second hand market is the actual treasure trove of goodies. Most of the stuff inside the computer, when properly tended to, suffers almost no wearout over time, and can be scored unapologetically cheap, because modularity and availability!
You can go full junkyard warrior and build a sweet machine that may be only one or two generations behind the bleeding edge (trust me, it will still kick ridiculous amount of ass) for a fraction of the cost of the new parts. You will just have to know where to ask. Craigslist might be a good start. Offices throw their old ("old") workstations out for free or almost for free. And yesterday's server hardware is still very competent desktop equipment, ask Huanan motherboard owners (hi, @kafazen ;). Yay for versatility!
When buying used, pack up a suite of benchmarks and tests and learn how to use them. They will tell you if a part is actually good. If tests say yes, then you most certainly will be fine with the part.
By the way, I'm typing this with a used graphics card. It was probably decommissioned off some mining rig, IDK. RX580. The sweetest GPU I've ever had. Love this thing to pieces.
There's one important exception to it though:
STORAGE.
Disks DO degrade over time, both HDDs and SSDs. SSDs degrade as they are being written, HDDs degrade because HDD gods say it's time for it to go, who the fuck knows, they are electro-mechanical devices, they got a lot of moving parts.
Buy used storage only when in a pinch. Because you don't want to know what happens when a disk you store all your life's work on gets degraded. Buy new storage if you can - preferably double, because you have to keep backups.
When buying used, pack up a suite of benchmarks and tests and learn how to use them. They will tell you if a part is actually good. If tests say yes, then you most certainly will be fine with the part.
By the way, I'm typing this with a used graphics card. It was probably decommissioned off some mining rig, IDK. RX580. The sweetest GPU I've ever had. Love this thing to pieces.