PC Equipment - What stores to buy-in in the US?

[madad2005]

Hi,

I will be heading over to San Francisco this summer for a week. I did some searching on newegg.com and it seems the average piece of hardware in the US is roughly £20-30 ($35-$50) cheaper than in the UK, with laptops almost $200 cheaper. SO, I'm thinking of picking up some equipment for a new system whilst I'm over. Since I can't use online stores, does anyone know of hardware stores that will sell stuff like cpu's, video cards, etcetera?

[Erik]

Well online shops are a good deal cheaper, but if you were to walk into most actual stores selling computer equipment you would be looking at similiar prices I guess. This is especially true with just basic components as most stores won't have OEM hardware, just retail packages at full retail. Unles of course you want to buy something a few years old that has been "tested" by a few users before you.

Also think about the return process if you have any problems once you get home, could be a bit of a problem.

[madad2005]

The return process in customs is no longer an issue. The maximum allowable duty free has gone up from £145 to £320 (roughly $250-$590) for the entire EU, and the UK may increase this to £1000 ($1700).

[PrntRhd]

In the Bay Area the cheapest major stores are Fry's Electronics, Best Buy, and CompUSA, with Fry's being the cheaper of the three. Be prepared to shop a while though as Fry's has huge stores and a large selection of boards and components.
The stores range in size from 50,000 to over 180,000 square feet

Bay Area locations:

Fry's Electronics
1077 E. Arques Ave, Sunnyvale, CA Phone: (408)617-1300 map
Fry's Electronics
340 Portage Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94306-2244 Phone: (650)496-6000 map
Fry's Electronics
550 E. Brokaw Rd, San Jose, CA 95112-1006 Phone: (408)487-1000 map
Fry's Electronics
600 E. Hamilton Ave, Campbell, CA 95008-0233 Phone: (408)364-3700 map
Fry's Electronics
43800 Osgood Road, Fremont, CA Phone: (510)252-5300 map
Fry's Electronics
4100 Northgate Blvd, Sacramento, CA 95834-1240 Phone: (916)286-5800 map
Fry's Electronics
1695 Willow Pass Road, Concord, CA Phone: (925)852-0300 map

[saphalline]

Fry's has prices that are much more similar to Newegg than Best Buy, so that would be my vote as well. Here in the mid-west, Micro Center is also a good place. They won't be as cheap as Newegg or other online vendors, but you can find some truly awesome deals (such as a sale on a year-old model number of a DVD burner or whatever).

But of course shop around in CompUSA, too, as they sometimes have some good deals. My friend Orion got a Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum at CompUSA for about $100 cheaper than anywhere else, including Newegg! :eek: We think it was a mistake in the price :p but we never looked into it further. That's the cool thing about those brick-and-mortar shops - most of the time they are staffed by relative hardware newbies who don't shop online and don't know how much things are "supposed" to cost. Haha! ;)

[madad2005]

Cheers for the info! It is greatly appreciated. I was hoping to do a proper upgrade January of next year, but after seeing the prices in the US and since I'll be there anyway in June, it is just too good an opportunity to miss.

[PrntRhd]

You can also view their regular adverts online, just Google Fry's Electronics.

[Gothmog]

I think that you just need to pay attention to things like mail-in rebates or RMA policies, because unless you are gonna be in the states for a while you might have difficulty getting one of those to the UK. Those are just isolated scenarios, though.