Buying options (post Brexit)

mossym

py2006 wrote: »

Is there any benefit to getting something delivered to your granny in the UK and getting her to send it on here? :-)

you'll still be charged

Rob2D

Probably a decent market for PC bits in Ireland now after Brexit, if anyone was so inclined to start something up.

K.O.Kiki

Rob2D wrote: »

Probably a decent market for PC bits in Ireland now after Brexit, if anyone was so inclined to start something up.

Good luck finding a distributor for anything! :pac:

Cuddlesworth

py2006 wrote: »

Is there any benefit to getting something delivered to your granny in the UK and getting her to send it on here? :-)

No, failures and returns are a thing. Now you need your granny to ship items or find yourself paying single package rates to return equipment outside the EU.

ricimaki

Placed an order with CaseKing on the 14th, arrived yesterday with the UPS standard shipping, so about 10 days for things to arrive from them. Prices were reasonable for motherboard, processor, RAM, PSU and SSD. The box did have a dent in one of the corners, but there was plenty of brown paper inside keeping everything safe. Overall fairly happy with them.

spix

McDermotX wrote: »

Prices can be a bit all over the place on certain things (and seem to change from visit to visit), but managed to secure a couple of decent purchases from www.ldlc.com and www.alternate.de of late.

What do alternate charge for delivery?

bewareofthedog

Ordered some bits from caseking.de yesterday, shipped today with tracking number dhl courier.

Was a bulky order with a case etc but shipping was reasonable, 16e. I'm impressed.

Back in the day I always used hardwareversand so it's nice to know there's other options about.

McDermotX

spix wrote: »

What do alternate charge for delivery?

Depends on what you're getting obviously.
You can't make a direct order, as they state their prices for delivery etc are for Germany, but there is a submit button to request a quote separately. They forward on an offer with the shipping included at 0 (though obviously your paying for it with the total) then and if you're happy, they'll forward a PayPal link. Though I believe you can pay by Bank Transfer as well. Credit Cards are a mo go though as far as I know.

spix

McDermotX wrote: »

Depends on what you're getting obviously.
You can't make a direct order, as they state their prices for delivery etc are for Germany, but there is a submit button to request a quote separately. They forward on an offer with the shipping included at 0 (though obviously your paying for it with the total) then and if you're happy, they'll forward a PayPal link. Though I believe you can pay by Bank Transfer as well. Credit Cards are a mo go though as far as I know.

Is it a reasonable cost though or over the norm?

McDermotX

Like I say, you just get offered a cost on the item with the delivery charge included. I don't recall it being itemised on the invoice, but will have a look when I next have it in front of me.
UPS delivery anyway, so figure it's going to be similar as per delivery from the likes of any of the continental stores. 20-24 euro presumably.
Paid about 50-60 euro over the odds for a 5950X from any place even having a listing let alone a preorder, which included the shipping, over the going rate which wasn't bad going TBH considering the scarcity and scalping going on nearly everywhere.

Their prices seem to fluctuate like so many places these days anyway, but at least you know what the outlay will be up front beforehand.

Bigserious1

spix wrote: »

Is it a reasonable cost though or over the norm?

Had a graphics card reserved with them at €1100. The total cost came back at €1137.

Confused11811

Amazon UK still my go to site. I'll check there first and then compare to DE, FR, ES , IT and occasionally US.

Generally amazon UK works out cheaper for one item purchases. I order a Ryzen 5 3600 on Saturday at 4:05pm and it arrived today a 4:20pm. Total cost €177.21.

py2006

Confused11811 wrote: »

Amazon UK still my go to site. I'll check there first and then compare to DE, FR, ES , IT and occasionally US.

Generally amazon UK works out cheaper for one item purchases. I order a Ryzen 5 3600 on Saturday at 4:05pm and it arrived today a 4:20pm. Total cost €177.21.

Nice, so is the extra charges they add at your basket all correct? You don't incur extra charges by customs?

Samuel T. Cogley

py2006 wrote: »

Nice, so is the extra charges they add at your basket all correct? You don't incur extra charges by customs?

Over estimated for me on a couple of occasions, been pretty swift with the small refund I was due.

ricimaki

py2006 wrote: »

Nice, so is the extra charges they add at your basket all correct? You don't incur extra charges by customs?

I've used Amazon UK a few times since Brexit, and never incurred extra charges.

I actually got refunded roughly £2 as "Export fee reduced" on a delivery with 3 items in it (they give a breakdown per item, each was less than £1). They might possibly be overestimating fees for some items.

Edit: Samuel beat me to it!

Confused11811

py2006 wrote: »

Nice, so is the extra charges they add at your basket all correct? You don't incur extra charges by customs?

As the others said , no extra charges infact usually a slight overcharge at checkout and refund usually happens soon after

py2006

Hmm, may be I will get my cpu, motherboard and gpu off them after all.


Although, GPU is proving impossible. Even a temporary half decent one until more supply of the latest ones.

BloodBath

Ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon this week. The stuff sold directly by them get's the English VAT taken off at checkout with an Irish customs charge added instead. End's up being about the same as it was before.

1 of the items I got wasn't directly sold by them though and wasn't reduced in price so I'm basically paying vat twice on that one.

MadYaker

I’m still seeing used 1070s on Amazon for over €1000. What is causing this and when will it end?

Simi

MadYaker wrote: »

I’m still seeing used 1070s on Amazon for over €1000. What is causing this and when will it end?

Crypto-mining. There's a litany of other reasons, but it's the chief driving factor. It's why processors are starting to meet demand but GPU's are not.

Unfortunately it also appears to be getting worse I've noticed prices having started creeping up further still on GPU's for the few seconds they're showing as in stock.

rob808

Simi wrote: »

Crypto-mining. There's a litany of other reasons, but it's the chief driving factor. It's why processors are starting to meet demand but GPU's are not.

Unfortunately it also appears to be getting worse I've noticed prices having started creeping up further still on GPU's for the few seconds they're showing as in stock.

when crypto mining gona crash hopefully soon great for miners making money bad for gamers trying to buy a GPU for crazy money.

TheRover

I'm sure crypto didn't help but I doubt it's the main reason. Crypto has been around for years and this shortage is unprecedented.

Manufacturing was closed for a year. This is not only GPUs, but every single component chip, diode, transistor, etcetc that a computer component needs. Plus silicon. Add to that the fact that people are now working from home more thus needing computers/laptops. There's a shortage of GPUs, PSUs, RAM just to name a few, but GPUs are the only ones that have 2 single manufacturers in the world.

There's an estimation that it will take until late 2022/early 2023 to get back to "normal", so even if crypto disappears tomorrow, we're in this for the long haul

Retr0gamer

TheRover wrote: »

I'm sure crypto didn't help but I doubt it's the main reason. Crypto has been around for years and this shortage is unprecedented.

Manufacturing was closed for a year. This is not only GPUs, but every single component chip, diode, transistor, etcetc that a computer component needs. Plus silicon. Add to that the fact that people are now working from home more thus needing computers/laptops. There's a shortage of GPUs, PSUs, RAM just to name a few, but GPUs are the only ones that have 2 single manufacturers in the world.

There's an estimation that it will take until late 2022/early 2023 to get back to "normal", so even if crypto disappears tomorrow, we're in this for the long haul

No. It's definitely Crypto. They are the only ones buying cards at insane prices as they should be able to make that money back which in turn feeds the scalpers. Also a gamer will be happy with the one card whereas a miner will buy as many GPUs as are available which increases the demand for them. CPUs and PS5 consoles are demand constrained but you can still get one very easily. GPUs are next to impossible to get. If it wasn't for crypto it would be in line with CPUs and consoles.

Crypto might have been around for years but it hasn't ever been this profitable to mine. Usually it's been a negative value differential when offset against the cost of electricity and the hardware.

TheRover

Retr0gamer wrote: »

No. It's definitely Crypto. They are the only ones buying cards at insane prices as they should be able to make that money back which in turn feeds the scalpers. Also a gamer will be happy with the one card whereas a miner will buy as many GPUs as are available which increases the demand for them. CPUs and PS5 consoles are demand constrained but you can still get one very easily. GPUs are next to impossible to get. If it wasn't for crypto it would be in line with CPUs and consoles.

Crypto might have been around for years but it hasn't ever been this profitable to mine. Usually it's been a negative value differential when offset against the cost of electricity and the hardware.

As I said, I don't doubt crypto has some influence, but the rest is pure speculation. Whomever is farming big now was doing it before. Your average crypto farmer still only has 1 GPU that he just leaves on at home during the night.



It's the supply, demand, and shortage of materials, and that's why MSI for example has announced another price hike.

ricimaki

TLDR: Demand is record high, supply is heavily restricted. Crypto has very little impact on this.

The majority of foundries drastically reduced there production at the start of the pandemic, as orders for silicon wafers plummeted. This had knock-on effects for wafer probe, packaging, final test, and distribution.

Wafer probe is when the silicon die is powered up and given an initial check to make sure it works, before its put into its package.
Packaging is where the silicon is placed into the LGA, BGA, lead-frame etc. package. For example, its the PCB, pads/pins and metal top of a CPU.
Final test (also called ATE) is where the fully assembled/packaged devices are checked again before putting the devices into trays for shipment to distributors.

All of the above are done in different locations. For example, silicon might come from TSMC in Taiwan, get sent for wafer probe in Singapore, get packaged in South Korea, go for final test in Singapore again, and then get shipped to distributors.

Reducing silicon production had a major impact at all of those sites. Restarting/ramping up to full production takes a lot of time, as each of the above are all impacted. There is also a huge backlog of orders. You might have heard of the EU stepping in to secure automotive device production.

Its not just the GPU silicon itself which is delayed, but all of the other smaller IC's on the PCB, for power management, clock generation etc. which can be common across all sorts of electronic devices.

Crypto may well be eating into the demand for graphics cards, but so are the millions of people stuck inside at the moment looking for something to keep themselves occupied with until lockdowns eventually end. Under normal circumstances, EVGA, MSI, ASUS etc. would just order more parts, sell more to meet demand, and make more money. This isn't an option at the moment.

Whilst PC hardware seems to be hardest to find at the moment, it certainly isn't the only thing effected. There are significant delays in industrial and automotive products at the moment. You also see this with the new consoles being difficult to find anywhere. In any previous generation, by February, you could walk into any shop and get them easily

Just a side note. When you here people refer to silicon binning, this happens during probe and test

Source: I work in the industry

Luck100

TheRover wrote: »

As I said, I don't doubt crypto has some influence, but the rest is pure speculation. Whomever is farming big now was doing it before. Your average crypto farmer still only has 1 GPU that he just leaves on at home during the night.

Who's speculating now? You have some secret stats on how many GPUs people own? It's a no-brainer to say that crypto has exploded the demand side when a card can pay for itself in 3 months of mining. As long as mining can pay off cards in a few months, demand will be unlimited.

TheRover

Luck100 wrote: »

Who's speculating now? You have some secret stats on how many GPUs people own? It's a no-brainer to say that crypto has exploded the demand side when a card can pay for itself in 3 months of mining. As long as mining can pay off cards in a few months, demand will be unlimited.

I'm not speculating. If the manufacturers themselves are raising prices, it's because of supply and shortages, not crypto. If crypto were the main reason, manufacturers would keep their prices and only speculative shops would raise theirs.



Are you going to argue crypto is behind the shortage of XBoxes and PS5s as well?

Slutmonkey57b

ricimaki wrote: »

TLDR: Demand is record high, supply is heavily restricted. Crypto has very little impact on this.

The majority of foundries drastically reduced there production at the start of the pandemic, as orders for silicon wafers plummeted. This had knock-on effects for wafer probe, packaging, final test, and distribution.

Wafer probe is when the silicon die is powered up and given an initial check to make sure it works, before its put into its package.
Packaging is where the silicon is placed into the LGA, BGA, lead-frame etc. package. For example, its the PCB, pads/pins and metal top of a CPU.
Final test (also called ATE) is where the fully assembled/packaged devices are checked again before putting the devices into trays for shipment to distributors.

All of the above are done in different locations. For example, silicon might come from TSMC in Taiwan, get sent for wafer probe in Singapore, get packaged in South Korea, go for final test in Singapore again, and then get shipped to distributors.

Reducing silicon production had a major impact at all of those sites. Restarting/ramping up to full production takes a lot of time, as each of the above are all impacted. There is also a huge backlog of orders. You might have heard of the EU stepping in to secure automotive device production.

Its not just the GPU silicon itself which is delayed, but all of the other smaller IC's on the PCB, for power management, clock generation etc. which can be common across all sorts of electronic devices.

Crypto may well be eating into the demand for graphics cards, but so are the millions of people stuck inside at the moment looking for something to keep themselves occupied with until lockdowns eventually end. Under normal circumstances, EVGA, MSI, ASUS etc. would just order more parts, sell more to meet demand, and make more money. This isn't an option at the moment.

Whilst PC hardware seems to be hardest to find at the moment, it certainly isn't the only thing effected. There are significant delays in industrial and automotive products at the moment. You also see this with the new consoles being difficult to find anywhere. In any previous generation, by February, you could walk into any shop and get them easily

Just a side note. When you here people refer to silicon binning, this happens during probe and test

Source: I work in the industry

Don't forget transport. Global supply chains have piggybacked off passenger air transport for decades to maintain cost levels. That's one of the main reasons delivery timetaframes went haywire at the beginning of the pandemic and while it's better managed now, it is still extremely constrained. If you are shipping silicon between 4 countries, and there is a multi week delay at one or more points, then your production capacity suffers.

Retr0gamer

TheRover wrote: »

Are you going to argue crypto is behind the shortage of XBoxes and PS5s as well?

They're really not that hard to find. There's regular drops of consoles. If you really want one you'll find a way within a week. It's just impossible to get a GPU.

seraphimvc

ricimaki wrote: »

TLDR: Demand is record high, supply is heavily restricted. Crypto has very little impact on this.
...

Source: I work in the industry

Ye Linus did a video on this not long ago, more or less what you said too. Indeed the demand is all time high since many people want to upgrade their ancient machines during these 'work from home' days it seems :pac: