Deciding on building/buying a new comp, suitable for some fairly high quality/extended period gaming. Was wondering: Im off to the Us for 2 weeks soon and ive been told hardware is alot cheaper in the US. TRUE vs FALSE? (P.s) il reply but wether or not my post gets accepted will depend on how flowing i keep this thread. Thanks Matt
Hardware is a lot cheaper in the USA. Rediculously so. If you buy it online you also won't pay sales tax in most states. I'm not sure if you'd have to declare the items upon returning to the UK.
Technically you will have to declare it. I think you are allowed to bring in something like £300 worth out stuff from memory, have a look on some us price sites and see what the difference is for your spec then check the government website about what you can bring into the country
Technically : 1) you should pay the sales tax. Even in case of online sales, where you should put it on your tax declaration. But you probably won't have US tax declaration, right ? 2) you should pay VAT and customs, but you can probably say it is your own, old, used item.
Yeah, ive imported quite a lot to the UK from China and the US in the past and just declared as a gift. But all im really on the look out for is a i5 2100K CPU and a nice graphics card, looking at spending about £300 max really. The fact that its cheaper makes me smile. (Cheap enough to post?) Anyone want to send me a shopping list haha.
This. It's a bit naughty (ok it is Very naughty), but you can post items back to yourself labelled as 'gifts' (you tick the gift box). Gifts have no tax on them. This is merely for information purposes. What you do with said information is up to you, and is your responsibility. {Edit} Personally I wouldn't do this with an entire build. Find out what value of goods you can bring back tax free first, then send one or two items back as gifts. It is one of those things you can do as an extra help, but try to do it all that way and you are asking to get caught.
EDIT: I see it's all been said before. However, this link hasn't: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/customs/arriving/arrivingnoneu.htm
Yes, hardware is MUCH cheaper in the US than it is here, but there's the caveat of import duty if you want to spend, spend, spend - what you save by purchasing in the US you will altogether lose when you, as an honest and law abiding citizen, pay UK customs charges. The threshold is £390 (which is very high compared to three years ago when I was on honeymoon in NYC), and you have to declare the items you are bringing into the UK only if the combined value exceeds £390. £390 is approx $630, so that's a pretty good allowance.
depending on how you travel you can get away with alot in computer hardware stuff I usauly travel with alot of computer hardware items to begin with due to work and come back with even more since its usauly static proof boxes items are transfered in i can fill them back up with hardware again if i wished price difference isnt as huge as people make it out to be though Cloths and trainers is totally different and i know foke who have took basically an empty suit case on holiday and filled it with purchases from new york city shopping sprees
Hardware isn't really "cheaper" per se, it's just a difference in taxes. Before VAT and before US tax any given item is roughly the same price. For example, an i5 2500k before VAT on Scan is roughly 135 pounds, which is roughly 220 dollars. Newegg has an i5 2500k for, guess what, 220 dollars before tax. You're pretty much paying the same amount for any given item, it just ends up with a smaller total due to evading taxes through [hopefully] legal means. Sales tax is something to be wary of, buying in brick and mortal store will hit you with sales tax, something like 5-10% depending on where you are. Some online retailers will charge tax, some don't. For a UK citizen buying on the cheap, make sure you use a retailer that doesn't.
It depends on the exchange rate - when I got my GTX260 it was $2 to £1, which was magnificent. The current exchange rate of $1.61 is nothing special, but getting hardware essentially without paying VAT is still a decent saving.
Awesome, thanks for the advice all, Ive got my shopping list and I may do a quickonline check or look in a few shops while im out there. If I save some moeny then thats great but if not il just fork out the £'s like everyone else.
Also, don't forget that the customs allowances are per person, so you could give each person you're travelling with an item to carry.
We shal see, im looking for about a 15-20% saving for me to even really consider it Going to do some internet snooping and maybe plan ahead Thankyou All
I'm off t the states for a couple of weeks and might try and pick up a new GPU online when I'm there. Am I right in thinking that newegg.com is the place to shop?
i considered buying over there a few months ago, but i didn't. if you factor in the exchange rate, their VAT, it comes to almost the same. then you got to remember that there are no where to return faulty items. eg. ipad 2 costs $500 while UK version costs £400. $500 + 10% VAT + bank's exchange rate = roughly £380. hardly worth the effort with computer hardware that might be faulty, where first year warranty is return to retailer.
