I organized my setup. RATE MY SETUP!!!

Plastic Containers would be advised.

Any suggestions on what to do here? I mean, I don't have a lot of money. I a $5 in cash. I am willing to trade a laptop, a few cpus, an OLD gpu, my current gpu, any of those for a good gpu and case... well... mainly a gpu is what I need.

with PSU beside MB not below or above , to help with any Static that maybe generated with the plastic. Your better with a case though and Watch your Hands those Heatsink Coolers can slice you up.

I'd say I'm pretty careful with everything, but thanks for the tips.

What's that?

There is an example the Board should not be too close to Base metal it can Arc and Short Out.

Ok, got it. That's why I put my motherboard on standoffs

With plastic spacers in between the heads of the screws and the motherboard. And in between the standoffs and the motherboard.

Oh, and the huge heat sink I have doesn't even fit onto the board. It is literally just sitting on top of the cpu. Not screwed down or anything.

And the thermal paste I have is old and drying up. I don't have money for good thermal paste. Lol.

U really are asking 4 trouble that is a hazard to ur CPU / Board and yourself.

Yeah... this is why I need a new pc. Lol

Best u can do is leave it alone then just keep ur fan going carefully.

Yeah, the fan works really well. It actually stays at a nice temp. I have the fan sitting on the heatsink though. It is blowing down onto the heat sink and that seems to keep he Temps down more.

Might not look it but be careful around those fans they too can slice u up.

Yeah. This fan is slow and it won't do too much damage to my fingers. Lol. On the other hand, the fan that is sitting on my psu is a server fan. It's loud af and super powerful. I accidentally got my finger in it and it cut DEEP.

so when you go on craigslist, what people do is they go on ebay and find the average and knock theres down $10. Some people will remember how much they paid for it and they make a judgement call on what it is worth to themselves...

craigslist does not have buyers guarantee like ebay so you can effectively ask to knock down the cost by A LOT (there are a lot of scammers selling broken sh*t). Even better, if you have a MicroCenter Store near your house you can compare prices with that (again a lot of scammers know people never heard of microcenter).

Your main objective is to determine the price to actual real world modern day use (you watch benchmarks videos on youtube). You want to compare everything to a modern day gpus...rtx 2080/radeon7 or a gtx1060/rx590.

so in this case if I had to price the r9 270, its real world value is close to $20. BUT you need to find out which pins it needs and if you have the psu to fits its needs.

so you message the guy, i saw your ad for a $60 gpu but ive been consulted thats i shouldnt buy it, but if youll consider ill offer you $10 he'll say $25-$30 and you say i only have $15 to offer and he'll either say no or yes but it would favor a yes because r9 cards are obsolete in 2019

* cough * missing screws * cough *

well i also dont care about having or not a case, its even more cooler when you don't have a case!
just need to make sure its in a place no one touches or that you dont have pets or kids around.
and obviously dont have anything metal close, it can be easily to short something and to be really safe, have a fire extinguisher that can be used with electricity nearby

sadly i own pets, and have some family members that even if i warn them, they come clean the place (so i can't leave small stuff like screws around lol)
so i can't have a setup like that, i wish..
i would like to get one of thoose open cases for benchmarks that youtube people use to swap stuff around all the time but same issue as before (pets and people come here unattended)