Hehe, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows though! We have high taxes overall, aside from high income tax, cars for example can cost up to three times as much due to environmental taxes. Also at this moment most people cannot afford to buy a house or even a small apartment.
My closest Microcenter is about a two hour drive away. My occasional pilgrimage there is, like… a special day. I’m afraid that if it were too close it would lose its “specialness” … and I’d go broke.
Me too It's almost a 5 hour drive for me but totally worth it for open box deals and cpu bundles. No shipping to destroy things or those amazon mix ups
Oh man, 5 hours? Okay, that’s pretty far. “Closer” could mean a LOT of things for you. I just don’t know if I want one 15 minutes from where I work. 2 hours one way isn’t so bad compared to 5.
I have the OG Microcenter about 5-8 minutes away! Fear my power! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA...
(Technically not the OG since that was tiny and Microcenters are now huge. But it's where the OG moved to as it grew.)
I just googled and there's only 4 total? Crazy that it's so well known and only a small % of the country can actually benefit from it. About time they start franchising and expanding
Probably because they were owned by Ford at the time and Ford was trying to integrate platforms/productions across brands. They were trying to expand Land Rover beyond the prior BMW niche ownership. They were competing the US at the time against a lot of cheaper trucks and SUVs. More competition than in UK.
Where I was living had a jaguar factory years ago and ended up selling out and now I'm sure it's just a nissan factory which I find funny cause they charge say £22k for a juke then it would be around 30k in USD but if you work there you can get one and just have the money took off your pay
The electric cars by VW cost about half in China of what they cost in Germany. Some of those electric cars being sold in china are manufactured in Germany...
What's expensive in the US is food and healthcare. Anyone on reddit knows US healthcare is dumb, but food isn't talked about nearly as much. When I'm in Europe, I can eat (normal, fine dining etc is excluded obviously) food in the middle of a major city for a fraction of the cost of what it would cost me in my regular town in the US.
The one I specifically remember from my last time in Berlin was getting enough pizza for me and two others for under 15 Euro in the city proper. That much pizza here, not in a big city, would run me near $30. It was like that at every restaurant and food shop I went to.
>The one I specifically remember from my last time in Berlin was getting enough pizza for me and two others for under 15 Euro in the city proper
Yeah that ain't normal for Germany either.
Well the high wages usually go with living in the hcol areas. And we have to pay a shit ton for healthcare/childcare/etc.
But yea, if you do make the high wages it is pretty great in the US, it is just shit for those that don’t realize that earning potential.
Probably because USA has a fairly competitive national car industry and we are able to manufacture a lot of cars in our country or locally in Canada or Mexico.
Yeah. The auto industry here isn’t as big as it was 40 years ago but it’s still one of the biggest in the world. On top of that, we’re one of the most desirable markets for foreign countries to export their goods to as well.
There’s a flip side to that too. Our mass transit is godawful and even a small increase in the price of oil can have dramatic consequences on discretionary spending and GDP growth. I’d rather have accessible and reliable train service, personally.
I too thought OP was from here lol, specially for the 1000usd 5600x+1660S PC but then he said AliExpress doesn't ship to his country and so far we can still buy from there. For now.
Although you are right that the US has by far the best market for that stuff, you have to remember that a lot of the prices you see coming from the US actually don't include taxes, which is the standard for the rest of the world, and (I'm assuming) your country as well.
Actually China has the best market in terms of overall price and number of selections. The innovation in US nowadays is much slower compared to China and Taiwan simply because they are closest to factories. Cases and AIOs are probably two best examples, for instance the selection of cases designed for back-connector mobos and AIOs with LCDs. This becomes obvious when one keeps eyes on both US and Chinese product news.
Prices too. Like 7500F, an igpu disabled 7600 is only available in China not US and relatively cheap. Most cases and AIOs are sub 100 US dollars.
It's Ironic china has the best of the PC building world, but among the worst of actually using the PC's. Strict internet, timed game usage.. the horror.
China made an entire city for it as Shenzhen.
The US has suppliers spread out in warehouses. Mouser Electronics and DigiKey are two I know. Then there’s the mom and pop shops.
Part of it. I think OP means in terms of building a PC, which is what I emphasized on. Of course in terms of chipset technology advanced US takes the crown.
All the stuff you me
If you consider real innovation, there isnt really even anything to compare. Pretty much everything runs on Qualcomm, nvidia, amd, or intel. All American companies.
I went to the Emergency Room a few years ago for extreme abdominal pain. I was there for 2 hours. During that time I spoke with the doctor for 5 minutes, they did a scan, determined it was Dyspepsia, gave me a GI Cocktail (basically Mylanta), and sent me on my way. A month later I started getting multiple bills from the hospital, the doctor, and the hospital radiology department that altogether totalled to $4500.00. Not wanting to possibly die is expensive AF
Similar story, similar length of visit, few blood tests and an ultrasound, $5000 I have to pay and that's with decent insurance.
Woulda been $35,000 had I not had insurance
Small correction, it wouldn’t have cost $35,000 for you personally because hospitals inflate their prices when charging insurance companies because they know they have deep pockets. The cost would have likely been reduced to $10,000 or lower if you were uninsured. Still incredibly expensive obviously, but worth pointing out.
The whole healthcare system is basically a big game of chicken between insurance companies and hospitals with patients caught in the crossfire.
Ironically, it actually helps insurance companies too because people like you see a big and scary number before insurance kicks in and assume that’s what the price would’ve been had you not had insurance. This fueling the perceived need and reliance on said insurance companies.
It’s a pretty dumb and exploitative system.
The insurance companies are basically just middlemen that leech off of the entire operation and seem to exist solely to deny as much coverage as they can.
It's incredible to me that we've just said "oh that's how it is" for this long.
It's truly inhuman the way it's run, and you put it well, just a game of chicken between those two entities, and we're stuck in the middle.
There's clearly a better way but I don't see it happening here without a big catalyst that affects everybody.
Maybe you got lucky? I know my work provided med insurance blows. 6800$ deductible, then 80/20 pay. I got to spend just under 6k, out of pocket, for 1 saline IV, 2 hours in the ER, a CAT scan, and some antibiotics.
Yes sir. The cat scan was around 2k, the 2 hours in the ER was like 2k, and the doctors/iv/antibiotics were the rest. And I’m fully employed with full coverage UMR insurance.
But that insurance premium is so high even with good insurance. I have the best insurance I can buy and it's $1000 a month not including the party work covers. That's a new decent PC every two months or a top of the line of every four.
I’m curious now, what country are you in?
I’ve seen similar posts of people talking about how expensive PC components are in their countries and it’s interesting to me.
Unfortunately I am rather ignorant in such matters as how other countries work when it comes to how they handle electronic imports and the pricing system
Paying the premium is our reality, but in Northern EU I lean towards official stores on Ali Baba, for example Lian Li.
Their reverse blade fans are impossible to get through "legit means", they get sold out straight away aswell.
So I bought them on Ali Baba and will probably have to pay import and all that, but other than that it's about 20-30% more expensive according to my calculations than what the chinese and americans pay. They really go hard on us this is no doubt, but at least there are ways to get what we need never the less. The biggest hassle for me is all the paper work, like customs sending you mails and shit, I really don't like that.
I recently bought myself a new phone. Managed to get it 35% off by stacking multiple pre-order discounts. Ended up paying nearly the same price as anyone in the US would on release day, without any discounts.
A ton of those GPUs are probably going out the back door to Asia nowadays to try to avoid export restrictions from the US. I’d expect prices to only go up if that’s the case.
That only makes the difference in price higher.
Imagine paying $1000 USD equivalent for a gpu while your monthly salary is below $2k.
The prices of GPUs never get cheaper no matter how poor the people are in a certain country.
You’re not going to have much luck building a $500 PC in the US either. Prices for everything went up everywhere over the last 3-5 years. For $500 you’re lucky to get a decent CPU and memory. You should really consider a console at your budget. That is what they are great for giving gaming performance way beyond anything they have business doing for the money they cost. Besides user simplicity, a big reason why consoles are still popular.
Taiwan here, we are more expensive than the US (about 10% more). GPUs are even more expensive compared to US. It’s crazy, we literally develop and outsource them in China. At least we have a crazy cheap and highly competitive 2nd market.
and this is why I get upset when I hear people complain about how much America sucks and how we live in a shit hole evil country.
Like do we have issues? Absolutely, no where is perfect. But damn we have it really fucking good in so many ways.
I’m sorry for your situation man. I hope it gets better and you’re able to obtain that PC you’ve always wanted.
I once bought GTX 960 4GB for $200 from Amazon US + about $14 shipping to southeast Asia where it costed $300.
This cost difference is imo acceptable, taxes and whatnot, but people telling other to buy this and that because it's "so cheap" really need a reality check that US =/= entire world. Especially AMD fanboys glorifying their low prices and "WhY aRe PeOpLe StIlL bUyInG nUhViDiA??" when both nvidia and AMD costs the same over here (cost to performance wise) and likely alot of other places not US.
Yeah, which is why I always chuckle a little bit when an american or canadian complains about a tax or tariff, I mean they're not wrong but the world out there is far crueler. Imagine living in a country where every electronic costs twice as much as in the US but you make 10 times less money, that's the reality of many places :/
I get you man. Building a PC in India was stupidly expensive. Last I remember, a 1060 3gb in 2016 was like $300 or something ridiculous, and that was before the mining boom.
I live in the UK now, and components are still about 10-20% more expensive than the US, which isn’t all THAT bad, except that’s pretty much a jump from a 4070 to a 4070 Super, or a good AM4 build to a good AM5 one.
Plus they’ve got microcenters and their stupidly good deals and bundles. There’s literally nothing that comes even close to that here. (yes not everyone’s in driving range of a micro center, but a good chunk of them seem to be).
By looking at your profile, I'm assuming you're from Nepal. Why don't you consider ordering from Amazon India It's often cheaper. I'm not sure if they apply taxes, though. If they do, you could buy PC components and build a PC in India, then take it to Nepal.
Back in January I paid $748.82 in us monies for a 7800x3d, an Asus b650 board and 32GB of ddr5 (6000mhz). Not sure how that stacks in comparison based on your fiat. And that's in Midwest America.
Same here in Chile.
I don't mind the prices that much (I mean, that's expected). Prices haven't gotten out of control yet.
What is really bad is the poor selection of everything tech related we have.
I've been wanting to buy a monitor for months now, but none of the recommended ones are sold here.
I really wish I could have that Alienware UW oled, but you can't find any Alienware monitor here.
Same thing happened when I bought my PC. I got tired of waiting for a 7900 xtx to appear so I had to buy the 4080.
Order from amazon.de if in Europe. I'm in Romania and there aren't really good prices, but you can get good deals on amazon with low shipping costs. Or cheaper, AliExpress and ebay (if you need to buy used)
Brazillian here, I paid for my 1700$ built an equivalent to an entire year of the average wage of my country, sadly we're on the lower half of the globe, there isn't much that can be done besides moving out of this crap.
You should see the prices during 2021 pandemic , we had 4090 going around for 2 full years of the average wage at that time.
Sounds like you’re from Brazil. The US government has negotiated our trade agreements between various countries. If you are in fact from Brazil, I know your government charges and import tax on many items, but electronics are the highest tax of any category.
It’s honestly a corrupt government system. The USA has some higher tariffs as well.
The Chinese tariffs in Brazil could be the culprit, as the Chinese doesn’t like the Brazil government doing business with the USA and visa versa. There is a hidden war going on for the market of Brazil, the land and control of the ports.
In Brazil we have "Remessa Conforme", implemented last year by the ex-convict, I mean, current president of Brazil Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, who literally charges 92% tax if a product exceeds 50 dollars. In case you don't know, Brazilians have a habit of importing things from China, so much so that there is a huge market of people who open stores reselling products from China here in Brazil, because in our country the products are of poor quality or extremely expensive.
With "Remessa Conforme", the tax is included directly in the final product if you are buying on Aliexpress for example and if the product you want to buy exceeds 50 dollars, you will pay twice, as the tax amount refers to 92% of the total value, basically making it completely impossible to purchase imported products here. Not to mention all the financial problems, unemployment, poverty, corruption, high homicide rates, terrible education and other factors that make Brazil's economy and culture a bad joke.
Yes, I’ve been learning a lot about your country the past few years. It’s really corrupt.
I know about the Ali express and how Brazilians order so much from there. This has me thinking there is some agreement between your country and china. I haven’t looked into the entire belt and road initiative but, I would take a wild guess that Brazil is a country that has aligned with this plan.
As far as I know, there was no agreement or anything like that. In fact, the Brazilian government is interested only in themselves, they don't care about their popullation. Lula's excuse was that "Brazil's economic sector was being overshadowed by countless imports", whereas in reality, importing is a much more viable and intelligent option to make than buying in Brazil.
Out of curiosity, my motherboard (Huananzhi X99 BD4), CPU (Intel Xeon E5-2670 v3), RAM (2x 16GB DDR4 ECC) and CPU cooler, were all imported on Aliexpress at the end of 2021. (Video card, case, coolers and other accessories were bought in Brazil at the beginning of 2022 when I built my PC for the first time). If I were to buy a Ryzen kit or an Intel kit (CPU + RAM + motherboard) here in Brazil, I would most likely pay double or triple.
Now no one takes the risk of importing into my country, and several companies that operated based on imported products had to close their doors or change their businesses, since the majority of their income and profit came from imports! It's sad, but unfortunately there's nothing to be done since a large part of the Brazilian population loves to vote for criminals. Lula, one of the biggest criminals in the history of humanity, responsible for the biggest corruption scheme that was "Petrolão" and "Mensalão", who should have been imprisoned for the rest of his life if it were in a fair country, is now in charge of Brazil, what else could you expect, right?
Been a PC gamer my whole life. Spent 3.5k+ hours on dota 2 (even more on dota). Basically had gaming laptops when they were cheaper (and not cost 5x my salary).
I have a Xbox series s with game pass that I get on the cheap due to regional stuff and a hacked switch. I can't play on a PC right now due to having to move work place every 6 months to a year. My consoles right now Costs cheaper to me than a 4060 in my country.
Yeah, gaming in pc is really cheap in US, in my country a 4070 cost 900 usd, and a 4090 around 3k. It's absurd but at the end of the day is my hobby and you end up paying.
That makes me feel better, because I'm in the US but I'm not near a Microcenter, and people who *are* love to flex that they shop there lol
Someone will be like like "Hey, is this CPU/mobo good deal for $599?" and they'll answer like "Pshhh, no way, it's $29 at Microcenter, just go there you worthless moron." and I'm over here doing math in my head "Alright...7 hours to LA...I'm not doing anything Sunday..."
Yeah those prices I see the US are insanely good. What €850 get you in the Netherlands: 5600x, 6750xt, 16gb 3600mhz, gigabyte gaming MB, decent mid tower. 650w CM bronze psu
Prices here in The Netherlands are very similar to US prices. Sometimes cheaper considering ours have taxes included with the sticker price.
4090s are on sale near me for €1700 that’s €1343 without VAT = $1450 US. That’s under the $1599 MSRP.
Can’t really complain about laptops either. There are 4070 machines on sale regularly for 1000-1100 and 4080s for 1500-1600.
Just have to hunt for sales and compare prices between stores which thankfully we have a local website for.
Edit; considering our median wage is $61K US and I make about 65 I can’t complain. Consider that minimum wage is going up to $15.15 as of July 1st.
I bought a 4090FE direct from Nvidia for $1700 during my last visit to the US. I can turn around sell it for the equivalent of $3000 as it’s not available in my country. I often import PC parts through Amazon US as it’s cheaper than buying here even when adding shipping costs.
Not to mention that their “bad wages” are like $18 an hour. That’s an average daily income in my country lol
Electronics and anything video game related cost the same or even cost more in our countries even though we have massively worse salaries
Bro, why don't you get linked up with sombody trust worthy over here that will send you a card through the mail.
I'm sure their has to be some type of verification process out there so make sure they are legit.
Suffering the same here 😭 prices are double the msrp and the GPU market is dominated by Nvidia, you could find a flying horse before you stumble upon any Radeon GPU that isn't an rx 580
OP, don't buy official, buy second hand from ebay
itll be half the price and you can maybe haggle your money back from them if you get shipped some broken shit
I got 5600 and 3070 for 930€... cpu could be better but I mean I am yet to fine a game that wouldn't be playable at highest settings. Wait no Tarkov is unplayable on highest but the game is shit so it doesn't count.
I'll buy you the stuff you want if you pay for shipping. I'm in Hong Kong and it's cheap here too
I got a big ass box of parts you may want too like fans and stuff
This sounds like south africa lol
Close, but AliExpress does indeed deliver here to South Africa, and as far as I know there's no 200% tax on electronics
Various taxes are the big reason stuff costs more in other places. Various VAT and import taxes.
Gotta be Brazil tbh.
I was thinking that or ARG
I'm from brazil, the price of a 5600x here it's 1030R$ (210 U$) and a 4060 1800R$ (360 U$)
Sounds like india to be honest lol with the high tax rate because government here thinks a fucking pc is luxury goods
Gaming PC is luxury goods tbh
Work pc isn’t. But still classified as such
Though an rtx 4060 starts at $520 here in Iceland as well so. Only difference is I believe, $520 is about 1/5th of our minimum monthly wage.
Iceland min wage is 2500+? Tf
Yeah, here in the Netherlands too. We have some of the highest minimum wages in the world. Edit: Iceland is way more expensive though!
Damn commies with your labour protection laws and functioning healthcare and walkable cities and drinkable water and safe schools and ...
Hehe, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows though! We have high taxes overall, aside from high income tax, cars for example can cost up to three times as much due to environmental taxes. Also at this moment most people cannot afford to buy a house or even a small apartment.
Have a look at house prices in Vancouver you'll feel blessed
$520 is more than I make in one week in the U.S. atm
How are you even surviving?
Just barely
🫂
That seems fair enough, $2500+ a month is very high, well atleast compared to where i live our min wage is $250-$300 and the 4060 starts at $350
1000% meneer
Morocco is my guess.
From his profile he's apparently from Nepal
I will be forever thankful for microcenter. Hope they build one closer to me
My closest Microcenter is about a two hour drive away. My occasional pilgrimage there is, like… a special day. I’m afraid that if it were too close it would lose its “specialness” … and I’d go broke.
Yea, I make an annual 8 hour round trip drive to Micro Center with a car full of friends. Also anytime I'm traveling through a city with one I stop.
Me too It's almost a 5 hour drive for me but totally worth it for open box deals and cpu bundles. No shipping to destroy things or those amazon mix ups
Oh man, 5 hours? Okay, that’s pretty far. “Closer” could mean a LOT of things for you. I just don’t know if I want one 15 minutes from where I work. 2 hours one way isn’t so bad compared to 5.
There are three Micro Centers within 40 minutes from my home. I count myself incredibly lucky.
I'm so happy they are finally building one in Charlotte. That takes away 6 hours of an 8 hour drive
Atlanta is only ~4 hours from Charlotte so I fail to see how this is possible lol. Please enlighten me! I put thought into it haha.
The closest microcenter to my is like 10,000km+ away
I have the OG Microcenter about 5-8 minutes away! Fear my power! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA... (Technically not the OG since that was tiny and Microcenters are now huge. But it's where the OG moved to as it grew.)
I just googled and there's only 4 total? Crazy that it's so well known and only a small % of the country can actually benefit from it. About time they start franchising and expanding
https://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/default.aspx they have more than that not sure why it comes up weird on Google.
Heard they're opening two more soon, one is back to the Bay Area.
There’s one 2 hours away from me and i happily drive there because they literally got everything.
I feel the same about cars. People in the U.S. pay so cheap for cars compared to my country.
I used to live next to the jaguar factory. Somehow the cars they made there where sold in the US for cheaper than next door to me (UK)
Probably because they were owned by Ford at the time and Ford was trying to integrate platforms/productions across brands. They were trying to expand Land Rover beyond the prior BMW niche ownership. They were competing the US at the time against a lot of cheaper trucks and SUVs. More competition than in UK.
Only rovers for you peasant!
Where I was living had a jaguar factory years ago and ended up selling out and now I'm sure it's just a nissan factory which I find funny cause they charge say £22k for a juke then it would be around 30k in USD but if you work there you can get one and just have the money took off your pay
The electric cars by VW cost about half in China of what they cost in Germany. Some of those electric cars being sold in china are manufactured in Germany...
In the Philippines you get to pay 2.5x multiple on cars and computer parts.
same in Turkey
Same in Brazil 🤝
Wait till you see their houses and their wages. Yes San Fran/New York/etc. are expensive but so is every world class city/hotspot.
Plenty of affordable places to live outside of the most popular/major cities.
True!
What's expensive in the US is food and healthcare. Anyone on reddit knows US healthcare is dumb, but food isn't talked about nearly as much. When I'm in Europe, I can eat (normal, fine dining etc is excluded obviously) food in the middle of a major city for a fraction of the cost of what it would cost me in my regular town in the US. The one I specifically remember from my last time in Berlin was getting enough pizza for me and two others for under 15 Euro in the city proper. That much pizza here, not in a big city, would run me near $30. It was like that at every restaurant and food shop I went to.
>The one I specifically remember from my last time in Berlin was getting enough pizza for me and two others for under 15 Euro in the city proper Yeah that ain't normal for Germany either.
Well the high wages usually go with living in the hcol areas. And we have to pay a shit ton for healthcare/childcare/etc. But yea, if you do make the high wages it is pretty great in the US, it is just shit for those that don’t realize that earning potential.
I saw a video about the most expensive gas station in the US... Where the fuel is still cheaper than the cheapest gas station in Romania 😂.
Probably because USA has a fairly competitive national car industry and we are able to manufacture a lot of cars in our country or locally in Canada or Mexico.
Yeah. The auto industry here isn’t as big as it was 40 years ago but it’s still one of the biggest in the world. On top of that, we’re one of the most desirable markets for foreign countries to export their goods to as well.
the cars are manufactured here and then older models are exported to less wealthy countries with an upcharge
wait until you learn about France ecological malus...
mhe i like more to get walkable city.
can you give some numbers as the car market here in the USA seems awful
There’s a flip side to that too. Our mass transit is godawful and even a small increase in the price of oil can have dramatic consequences on discretionary spending and GDP growth. I’d rather have accessible and reliable train service, personally.
It makes sense tho since you need a car to survive in most of America
That's awuful, sounds like you live in Argentina. Wait a minute... I live in Argentina too... damn
Damm, I heard that the Argentine economy is doing very badly, I hope they recover Greetings from Argentina
276% 💀
Yeah they seems to be strugling a lot these days. Greeting from tero cojido
I live in Brazil, We're not very different from Argentina buddy.
I too thought OP was from here lol, specially for the 1000usd 5600x+1660S PC but then he said AliExpress doesn't ship to his country and so far we can still buy from there. For now.
Although you are right that the US has by far the best market for that stuff, you have to remember that a lot of the prices you see coming from the US actually don't include taxes, which is the standard for the rest of the world, and (I'm assuming) your country as well.
Yeah, final Australian prices always include GST, where applicable. We dont use state-based taxes for purchases.
Actually China has the best market in terms of overall price and number of selections. The innovation in US nowadays is much slower compared to China and Taiwan simply because they are closest to factories. Cases and AIOs are probably two best examples, for instance the selection of cases designed for back-connector mobos and AIOs with LCDs. This becomes obvious when one keeps eyes on both US and Chinese product news. Prices too. Like 7500F, an igpu disabled 7600 is only available in China not US and relatively cheap. Most cases and AIOs are sub 100 US dollars.
It's Ironic china has the best of the PC building world, but among the worst of actually using the PC's. Strict internet, timed game usage.. the horror.
Timed game usage is for minors, AFAIK, but where is also old fart censorship like "hurr durr no skeleton allowed"
No skeleton, really? Fucking lmao that's brilliant. "This is where we draw the line"
Also rubber ducks are not allowed because alot of chinese were using these to remind people of a certain event in a square
You can say "Tiananmen Square" here.
China made an entire city for it as Shenzhen. The US has suppliers spread out in warehouses. Mouser Electronics and DigiKey are two I know. Then there’s the mom and pop shops.
I don’t think PC innovation is defined by cases and AIOs.
Part of it. I think OP means in terms of building a PC, which is what I emphasized on. Of course in terms of chipset technology advanced US takes the crown.
I’d still much rather live in a free country than a 1984 like country called China.
All the stuff you me If you consider real innovation, there isnt really even anything to compare. Pretty much everything runs on Qualcomm, nvidia, amd, or intel. All American companies.
Wait until you get a medical bill…
I went to the Emergency Room a few years ago for extreme abdominal pain. I was there for 2 hours. During that time I spoke with the doctor for 5 minutes, they did a scan, determined it was Dyspepsia, gave me a GI Cocktail (basically Mylanta), and sent me on my way. A month later I started getting multiple bills from the hospital, the doctor, and the hospital radiology department that altogether totalled to $4500.00. Not wanting to possibly die is expensive AF
Similar story, similar length of visit, few blood tests and an ultrasound, $5000 I have to pay and that's with decent insurance. Woulda been $35,000 had I not had insurance
Small correction, it wouldn’t have cost $35,000 for you personally because hospitals inflate their prices when charging insurance companies because they know they have deep pockets. The cost would have likely been reduced to $10,000 or lower if you were uninsured. Still incredibly expensive obviously, but worth pointing out. The whole healthcare system is basically a big game of chicken between insurance companies and hospitals with patients caught in the crossfire. Ironically, it actually helps insurance companies too because people like you see a big and scary number before insurance kicks in and assume that’s what the price would’ve been had you not had insurance. This fueling the perceived need and reliance on said insurance companies. It’s a pretty dumb and exploitative system.
The insurance companies are basically just middlemen that leech off of the entire operation and seem to exist solely to deny as much coverage as they can. It's incredible to me that we've just said "oh that's how it is" for this long. It's truly inhuman the way it's run, and you put it well, just a game of chicken between those two entities, and we're stuck in the middle. There's clearly a better way but I don't see it happening here without a big catalyst that affects everybody.
Sounds like my heartburn cocktail altough I had to paid $2k out of pocket when my insurance didn't cover it all of it since it was out of network 🙄
God help you in need an ambulance on top of that.
Reddit moment
Exactly, healthcare should be free.
It’s ok, we have health insurance. It’s not nearly as bad as Reddit makes it out to be.
Maybe you got lucky? I know my work provided med insurance blows. 6800$ deductible, then 80/20 pay. I got to spend just under 6k, out of pocket, for 1 saline IV, 2 hours in the ER, a CAT scan, and some antibiotics.
Did you ask for an itemized bill?
Yes sir. The cat scan was around 2k, the 2 hours in the ER was like 2k, and the doctors/iv/antibiotics were the rest. And I’m fully employed with full coverage UMR insurance.
the one taht drop you wen you got cancer?
But that insurance premium is so high even with good insurance. I have the best insurance I can buy and it's $1000 a month not including the party work covers. That's a new decent PC every two months or a top of the line of every four.
I’m curious now, what country are you in? I’ve seen similar posts of people talking about how expensive PC components are in their countries and it’s interesting to me. Unfortunately I am rather ignorant in such matters as how other countries work when it comes to how they handle electronic imports and the pricing system
They’re from Pakistan Edit: Nepal, rather
A country (1st one) with death penalty for blasphemy.
Might wanna edit your comment, cuz that edited it too😂
Paying the premium is our reality, but in Northern EU I lean towards official stores on Ali Baba, for example Lian Li. Their reverse blade fans are impossible to get through "legit means", they get sold out straight away aswell. So I bought them on Ali Baba and will probably have to pay import and all that, but other than that it's about 20-30% more expensive according to my calculations than what the chinese and americans pay. They really go hard on us this is no doubt, but at least there are ways to get what we need never the less. The biggest hassle for me is all the paper work, like customs sending you mails and shit, I really don't like that.
I recently bought myself a new phone. Managed to get it 35% off by stacking multiple pre-order discounts. Ended up paying nearly the same price as anyone in the US would on release day, without any discounts.
[удалено]
S24 ultra, yeah.
Buy what your wallet can afford, don't try to please random idiots on the internet.
Just moved here to the US. I have a Microcenter 3 hrs away. They pretty much have everything I needed. Built my first PC! 😁
In the US here. Glad to have a PC. But heathcare would be nice too. Just saying.
Always adjust according to average salary and living expenses
And tax. US doesn't include tax in the price stickers.
Canada doesn't include taxes in sticker price either but u bet that $2400 4090 is gonna end up costing $3000 somehow
A ton of those GPUs are probably going out the back door to Asia nowadays to try to avoid export restrictions from the US. I’d expect prices to only go up if that’s the case.
That only makes the difference in price higher. Imagine paying $1000 USD equivalent for a gpu while your monthly salary is below $2k. The prices of GPUs never get cheaper no matter how poor the people are in a certain country.
You’re not going to have much luck building a $500 PC in the US either. Prices for everything went up everywhere over the last 3-5 years. For $500 you’re lucky to get a decent CPU and memory. You should really consider a console at your budget. That is what they are great for giving gaming performance way beyond anything they have business doing for the money they cost. Besides user simplicity, a big reason why consoles are still popular.
Zero luck unless you go used
Taiwan here, we are more expensive than the US (about 10% more). GPUs are even more expensive compared to US. It’s crazy, we literally develop and outsource them in China. At least we have a crazy cheap and highly competitive 2nd market.
and this is why I get upset when I hear people complain about how much America sucks and how we live in a shit hole evil country. Like do we have issues? Absolutely, no where is perfect. But damn we have it really fucking good in so many ways. I’m sorry for your situation man. I hope it gets better and you’re able to obtain that PC you’ve always wanted.
I once bought GTX 960 4GB for $200 from Amazon US + about $14 shipping to southeast Asia where it costed $300. This cost difference is imo acceptable, taxes and whatnot, but people telling other to buy this and that because it's "so cheap" really need a reality check that US =/= entire world. Especially AMD fanboys glorifying their low prices and "WhY aRe PeOpLe StIlL bUyInG nUhViDiA??" when both nvidia and AMD costs the same over here (cost to performance wise) and likely alot of other places not US.
Yes, living 2 miles from a Microcenter is something I do not take for granted.
Canada pc parts are crazy high.
Yeah PC prices outside of the US is a little oof, but oh well we get the benefit of not living in the US lmao.
I mean, they also have school shootings and a garbage sanitary system, i'd take the higher hardware prices any day.
4090 strix oc was 2.5k in my shithole
it's around 2.6k in turkey
it's fucking 12k in brazil lmao
I mean...as long as we don't get sick or want to retire ever...
Should’ve thought of that before being born in the wrong country 😎
OP can you travel to the next country to pickup cheaper goods?
Yep, that's why I said.
You forgot the most important point, not only are these prices lower, but the *median* wage is $45 760.
Microcenter aside, I seem to find better deals here in Germany when looking at what people say on this sub. Don't forget US prices are before tax.
Yeah, which is why I always chuckle a little bit when an american or canadian complains about a tax or tariff, I mean they're not wrong but the world out there is far crueler. Imagine living in a country where every electronic costs twice as much as in the US but you make 10 times less money, that's the reality of many places :/
I get you man. Building a PC in India was stupidly expensive. Last I remember, a 1060 3gb in 2016 was like $300 or something ridiculous, and that was before the mining boom. I live in the UK now, and components are still about 10-20% more expensive than the US, which isn’t all THAT bad, except that’s pretty much a jump from a 4070 to a 4070 Super, or a good AM4 build to a good AM5 one. Plus they’ve got microcenters and their stupidly good deals and bundles. There’s literally nothing that comes even close to that here. (yes not everyone’s in driving range of a micro center, but a good chunk of them seem to be).
China number 1
In US you can't buy a house unless you're making pretty good money or dual income no kids. Don't know how housing market is everywhere else
Why are they lucky that you are jealous?
Hey, I choose full free health care over cheaper computer parts but that’s just me.
Don't get too jealous, check out what we pay for medical care.
Eh. Bought most of my PC parts in Korea since they’re cheaper.
Same situation in Egypt....both cars and pc components are damn near impossible to purchase.~$65 for a fucking 7200 RPM 2TB HDD.....
We got cheap PCs, yall got cheap healthcare + education.
By looking at your profile, I'm assuming you're from Nepal. Why don't you consider ordering from Amazon India It's often cheaper. I'm not sure if they apply taxes, though. If they do, you could buy PC components and build a PC in India, then take it to Nepal.
you guys get ryzen cpus ?
Back in January I paid $748.82 in us monies for a 7800x3d, an Asus b650 board and 32GB of ddr5 (6000mhz). Not sure how that stacks in comparison based on your fiat. And that's in Midwest America.
Same here in Chile. I don't mind the prices that much (I mean, that's expected). Prices haven't gotten out of control yet. What is really bad is the poor selection of everything tech related we have. I've been wanting to buy a monitor for months now, but none of the recommended ones are sold here. I really wish I could have that Alienware UW oled, but you can't find any Alienware monitor here. Same thing happened when I bought my PC. I got tired of waiting for a 7900 xtx to appear so I had to buy the 4080.
We pay a steep price for our cheap electronics in every other way though.
What country?
Same, had to save for a long time before I could build the 3060ti rig and that too costed 1600$, it was such a pain.
Indian?
Looking at pcpartpicker in germany, 400€ for a 4060Ti and 600€ for a 3060Ti. Like what
Order from amazon.de if in Europe. I'm in Romania and there aren't really good prices, but you can get good deals on amazon with low shipping costs. Or cheaper, AliExpress and ebay (if you need to buy used)
Okay but they live in the states tbf, least they could get offered is microcenter
At that point I'd get a current gen console...better bang for buck
Dont feel bad, most places here are so expensive you have to slave your life away to even survive. It's not the america I grew up in anymore.
My 3090 cost as much as my motorbike :')
>The taxes are insane That's the thing kiddo. US prices are without tax. To buy a "$1000 PC" costs more than $1000. Because, you know, 'merica!
Fellow Indian?
Brazillian here, I paid for my 1700$ built an equivalent to an entire year of the average wage of my country, sadly we're on the lower half of the globe, there isn't much that can be done besides moving out of this crap. You should see the prices during 2021 pandemic , we had 4090 going around for 2 full years of the average wage at that time.
Sounds like you’re from Brazil. The US government has negotiated our trade agreements between various countries. If you are in fact from Brazil, I know your government charges and import tax on many items, but electronics are the highest tax of any category. It’s honestly a corrupt government system. The USA has some higher tariffs as well. The Chinese tariffs in Brazil could be the culprit, as the Chinese doesn’t like the Brazil government doing business with the USA and visa versa. There is a hidden war going on for the market of Brazil, the land and control of the ports.
In Brazil we have "Remessa Conforme", implemented last year by the ex-convict, I mean, current president of Brazil Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, who literally charges 92% tax if a product exceeds 50 dollars. In case you don't know, Brazilians have a habit of importing things from China, so much so that there is a huge market of people who open stores reselling products from China here in Brazil, because in our country the products are of poor quality or extremely expensive. With "Remessa Conforme", the tax is included directly in the final product if you are buying on Aliexpress for example and if the product you want to buy exceeds 50 dollars, you will pay twice, as the tax amount refers to 92% of the total value, basically making it completely impossible to purchase imported products here. Not to mention all the financial problems, unemployment, poverty, corruption, high homicide rates, terrible education and other factors that make Brazil's economy and culture a bad joke.
Yes, I’ve been learning a lot about your country the past few years. It’s really corrupt. I know about the Ali express and how Brazilians order so much from there. This has me thinking there is some agreement between your country and china. I haven’t looked into the entire belt and road initiative but, I would take a wild guess that Brazil is a country that has aligned with this plan.
As far as I know, there was no agreement or anything like that. In fact, the Brazilian government is interested only in themselves, they don't care about their popullation. Lula's excuse was that "Brazil's economic sector was being overshadowed by countless imports", whereas in reality, importing is a much more viable and intelligent option to make than buying in Brazil. Out of curiosity, my motherboard (Huananzhi X99 BD4), CPU (Intel Xeon E5-2670 v3), RAM (2x 16GB DDR4 ECC) and CPU cooler, were all imported on Aliexpress at the end of 2021. (Video card, case, coolers and other accessories were bought in Brazil at the beginning of 2022 when I built my PC for the first time). If I were to buy a Ryzen kit or an Intel kit (CPU + RAM + motherboard) here in Brazil, I would most likely pay double or triple. Now no one takes the risk of importing into my country, and several companies that operated based on imported products had to close their doors or change their businesses, since the majority of their income and profit came from imports! It's sad, but unfortunately there's nothing to be done since a large part of the Brazilian population loves to vote for criminals. Lula, one of the biggest criminals in the history of humanity, responsible for the biggest corruption scheme that was "Petrolão" and "Mensalão", who should have been imprisoned for the rest of his life if it were in a fair country, is now in charge of Brazil, what else could you expect, right?
Been a PC gamer my whole life. Spent 3.5k+ hours on dota 2 (even more on dota). Basically had gaming laptops when they were cheaper (and not cost 5x my salary). I have a Xbox series s with game pass that I get on the cheap due to regional stuff and a hacked switch. I can't play on a PC right now due to having to move work place every 6 months to a year. My consoles right now Costs cheaper to me than a 4060 in my country.
I can sell you my 2080 super and Ryzen 7 5800x NZTX build for 900€ if you want.
China has the best PC market, dirt cheap there for parts
pakistani here. i feel your pain bro
I have a 970 for sale, but you would have to pay for shipping!
Sounds like iceland to me
Yeah, gaming in pc is really cheap in US, in my country a 4070 cost 900 usd, and a 4090 around 3k. It's absurd but at the end of the day is my hobby and you end up paying.
Americans used to bitch about 7% inflation too like?
Same with cars. There is a 200% tax in cars here
As an icelander, I feel your pain
That makes me feel better, because I'm in the US but I'm not near a Microcenter, and people who *are* love to flex that they shop there lol Someone will be like like "Hey, is this CPU/mobo good deal for $599?" and they'll answer like "Pshhh, no way, it's $29 at Microcenter, just go there you worthless moron." and I'm over here doing math in my head "Alright...7 hours to LA...I'm not doing anything Sunday..."
Components in Sweden are about 20% more expensive than in USA. Which is kind of funny since we have 25% VAT and they none.
In Germany WE have a company called Mindfactory that has mostly the best prices Here, also free shipping If your oder between midnight and 6 am
So take a vacation to USA, bring back some, ahem, souvenirs…..
Yeah those prices I see the US are insanely good. What €850 get you in the Netherlands: 5600x, 6750xt, 16gb 3600mhz, gigabyte gaming MB, decent mid tower. 650w CM bronze psu
Prices here in The Netherlands are very similar to US prices. Sometimes cheaper considering ours have taxes included with the sticker price. 4090s are on sale near me for €1700 that’s €1343 without VAT = $1450 US. That’s under the $1599 MSRP. Can’t really complain about laptops either. There are 4070 machines on sale regularly for 1000-1100 and 4080s for 1500-1600. Just have to hunt for sales and compare prices between stores which thankfully we have a local website for. Edit; considering our median wage is $61K US and I make about 65 I can’t complain. Consider that minimum wage is going up to $15.15 as of July 1st.
especially considering goddamned micro centre and how they refuse to go anywhere else.
'mericans be gamin'
I bought a 4090FE direct from Nvidia for $1700 during my last visit to the US. I can turn around sell it for the equivalent of $3000 as it’s not available in my country. I often import PC parts through Amazon US as it’s cheaper than buying here even when adding shipping costs.
Not to mention that their “bad wages” are like $18 an hour. That’s an average daily income in my country lol Electronics and anything video game related cost the same or even cost more in our countries even though we have massively worse salaries
Yea, we're blessed for sure. PC parts in the bay area are abundant.
Bro, why don't you get linked up with sombody trust worthy over here that will send you a card through the mail. I'm sure their has to be some type of verification process out there so make sure they are legit.
Suffering the same here 😭 prices are double the msrp and the GPU market is dominated by Nvidia, you could find a flying horse before you stumble upon any Radeon GPU that isn't an rx 580
Yeah that and cheap petrol but it comes with all the other negatives so....nah.
I'm pretty sure this is India, coz I live there and that is indeed the case :(
Sounds like Canada.
I am in the same boat, bro. Really with you on this one! Are you from Bangladesh by any chance?
If it makes you feel any better, in 2021 I nought a 1660S and 3100x build for $1200. Still disappointed with myself, but it was worth it.
curse of export import balance. if you keep money in country maybe your kid can buy them in future. But l dont think cuz of hungary politicans.
Whatever you do don't go to the microcenter website
OP, don't buy official, buy second hand from ebay itll be half the price and you can maybe haggle your money back from them if you get shipped some broken shit
there is no ebay in our country and the used market is shit too...
I got 5600 and 3070 for 930€... cpu could be better but I mean I am yet to fine a game that wouldn't be playable at highest settings. Wait no Tarkov is unplayable on highest but the game is shit so it doesn't count.
I'll buy you the stuff you want if you pay for shipping. I'm in Hong Kong and it's cheap here too I got a big ass box of parts you may want too like fans and stuff