Shopper walks out with a $4.99 Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU from Goodwill — thrift stores are the hidden goldmines amid the AI-driven GPU crisis

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Another thrift store miracle

An ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 5700 XT GPU scored for just $4.99 on Goodwill
(Image credit: u/12kdaysinthefire on Reddit)

Looking for an unbeatable deal on used PC hardware? A trip to your local thrift store might be worth it. That’s precisely what one Reddit user discovered after stumbling upon an AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT at their local Goodwill for just $4.99. This is one of the many thrift-store PC scores we’ve seen recently and quite a good one considering the RX 5700 XT, which used to be one of the best graphics cards, is still capable of reliable 1080p and even 1440p gaming. Custom models are selling for over $500, according to our GPU 2026 price tracker.

According to u/12kdaysinthefire, who scored the ASRock-branded Radeon RX 5700 XT, the card was allegedly modified by its previous owner, with the thermal paste and pads replaced by copper cooling blocks. The new owner restored the card by salvaging thermal pads from an older GPU, applying fresh thermal paste, and reassembling the cooler. After the fix, the GPU worked without any issues. This shows that sometimes thrift-store hardware needs a bit of basic maintenance to function again.

$4.99 thrift store GPU from r/pcmasterrace

Thrift store finds like this highlight a pattern we’ve seen over the past year or so: capable GPUs end up at remarkably low prices simply because they are either untested or poorly labeled. In a similar case, a lucky gamer found an Nvidia RTX 3060 12GB for just $4.99, suggesting that older but still functional hardware can end up in donation piles. With many thrift stores lacking the time or expertise to evaluate PC components, working hardware can easily be mistaken for scrap.

That said, hunting for PC parts at a thrift store always comes with some risk, since there’s no guarantee the hardware will work. But this RX 5700 XT shows that older graphics cards can often be revived with basic maintenance and some PC hardware knowledge. For budget gamers or tinkerers willing to take a chance, places like Goodwill can still hide some surprisingly good deals.

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Kunal Khullar
Kunal Khullar
News Contributor
15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Notton
    "This is one of the many thrift-store PC scores we’ve seen recently and quite a good one considering the RX 5700 XT, which used to be one of the best graphics cards, is still capable of reliable 1080p and even 1440p gaming. Custom models are selling for over $500, according to our GPU 2026 price tracker."
    "The GPU debuted with a $399 MSRP"

    Your price tracker doesn't include a 5700XT, and even if it did, I highly doubt anyone is buying a 5700XT w/ 8GB for $500.
    For instance, I found one listed for C$1918.22 on amazon.ca.
    Reply
  • Gururu
    The two Goodwills next to me are all slim pickings. Been looking for an ethernet switch and keeping an eye for systems in case DDR4/5 or GPUs onboard. Nothing!
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Gururu said:
    The two Goodwills next to me are all slim pickings. Been looking for an ethernet switch and keeping an eye for systems in case DDR4/5 or GPUs onboard. Nothing!
    I don't know where you shop, but new ethernet switches are cheap enough to not worry about "cheap/used" things.

    $15 at Amazon will get you a 5 port, $20 gets a 8 port.
    Reply
  • Gururu
    USAFRet said:
    I don't know where you shop, but new ethernet switches are cheap enough to not worry about "cheap/used" things.

    $15 at Amazon will get you a 5 port, $20 gets a 8 port.
    I have a cheap 5 port but never hurts to look for a golden egg.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Gururu said:
    I have a cheap 5 port but never hurts to look for a golden egg.
    True, but how much effort do you want to spend in "been looking"?

    If I need a $15 part, I'm not spending a whole lot of effort trying to find a used one cheaper.

    If I don't need it now, then sure...I've done that with many things at Goodwill and similar stores.
    Reply
  • Gururu
    USAFRet said:
    True, but how much effort do you want to spend in "been looking"?

    If I need a $15 part, I'm not spending a whole lot of effort trying to find a used one cheaper.

    If I don't need it now, then sure...I've done that with many things at Goodwill and similar stores.
    Just believe that I enjoy what I am doing. Not a lot of luck yet!
    Reply
  • Jadesphynx
    Won't be for long if you keep advertising it, damn it >.< lol
    Reply
  • scott46953
    As you see it's a Radeon and not Nvidia.
    This is like the Intel versus AMD.
    I'm old school yes, but back in the day if you had an AMD you was running slow, but if you had an Intel it was running much faster and smoother. Yes I've ran some ATI video stuff in the past however.. Now I spend a little bit extra. I know in today's world that you may not be able to notice much difference between the two so a lot of people don't really have a preference nowadays. But I'm a firm believer in the past and I'm a firm believer that in the future regardless on how much more they expand, they're only doing it because until and Nvidia are way ahead of a ball game. Somebody probably was upset with the radio on car because of the frames per second and then they went with the newest Nvidia and was so happy they decided to be a smarty pants and dropped their Radeon card off at the back door at the Goodwill. Next thing you know it's on Tom's hardware picked up at Goodwill. How convenient... The same way the difference between roku, fire stick, which is downhill with their blocking, aftermarket Android boxes versus the Nvidia streaming box. I will never run another one because Nvidia streaming box runs so much smoother the ram is much faster, it has cuda cores and a nice happy AI video enhancer that makes my picture so much better than all the rest of the boxes. And I'm not trying to brag, I'm just old school and I can get tired of waiting and I get tired of crap like Amazon blocking apps. Next thing we know third-party firmware side load. See this is the difference between cheaper stuff and stuff to cost a little bit more money. Yes it cost a little bit more money, but it's worth it in the long run. Was it worth it for $4.99 at the Goodwill absolutely. I'll try to figure out why one Goodwill store would mark an item like this at 4.99 while the one here in my town they put price tags on stuff like that $49.99 and then it sits on the shelf but somebody still buys it. Goodwill really needs to come up with some kind of pricing scheme because some of their stores look up the prices online deductive percentage off of it and then Mark it and throw it on the shelf. The same way with a pair of house speakers I seen there one time $40 okay that sounds good, get it up to the front oh well the $40 a piece.. You can keep those no longer interested... $80?? For something they got free out the back door and they don't even look like $80 worth.. Printers for $15 may or may not work.. Fingers crossed hopefully you plug that card in and it does work make sure you save your receipt. Also hope that it's not shorted and burn something else up on your main board on the way. Maybe toss it in an older board that's not so precious to test it out. No sense of ruining your expensive good board and power supply. Then you can think that dirty little devil that dropped the damn thing off that knew that had a problem. Hopefully it wasn't used for mining and the memory in the board is still good. I'm on other forms but I just signed up for this one because it seems to bring a lot of my attention here lately. I figured was speech to text on my phone nowadays, might as well join. I'm an old school coder translator, programmer, builder, 30 years Hands-On electronic repair tech day job. If it wasn't for this blizzard outside, this post wouldn't be so long. I'm out, next
    Reply
  • BFG-9000
    I can't tell what agenda they are trying to push in the non-premium tier news anymore. Is Amazon good or bad? One person got rocks, and another was told to keep a free RTX 5080. And at Goodwill one customer got the wrong GPU in a box, while others got a boxed RX 5700 XT, or an unboxed RTX 3060 12GB for $4.99.

    This funny old gif was from back when AMD didn't have the most stable drivers, Intel was slow but reliable, and nVidia burned out your big Tesla card (GTX 8800, 9800, 275/280/285/295) with a bad driver which disabled the fans coincidentally the same month that Fermi was released for sale:
    https://media1.tenor.com/m/EklBnsK4_VcAAAAd/amd-nvidia.gif
    Seems like nVidia has been working hard on getting their recent drivers as bad as those were since 576.02 similarly disabled fan control but only after waking from sleep, after which the temperature sensors no longer updated (NvAPI_GPU_GetThermalSettings), leading to a couple reportedly burned RTX 5090 cards from fans remaining at idle. On the bright side, not that many people tried them due to all the issues with drivers newer than 572 or 566 depending on the game, and it mostly just caused crashing problems from the overheating. So the modern user experience for nVidia is like the left panel except of course the bluescreen is now black, and for modern AMD it's now just a frozen blank screen
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    BFG-9000 said:
    I can't tell what agenda they are trying to push
    Maybe 'no agenda'...just...interesting.
    Reply