HEY guys
Aussie in germany for a while.
looking to build a new system.
what i have searched/ so fare is way to expensive and out dated. by the way don't speak german at all atm. working on it.
So were does all the germans buy there hardware?
You could probably use http://de.pcpartpicker.com/ to find the cheapest price.
http://www.mindfactory.de/Hardware.html
Notebooks, especially if you're a student: notebooksbilliger.de (the student discount program can be very interesting).
Traditional computer store where you can hang and learn from others like in the good old days: Atelco.de or any of the other smaller computer store enterprises (Hiq24.de/Bora-computer.De/etc).
Professional grade hardware for those who grew tired of TechData (except for the damaged packaging sales of course): Dell.de or Atelco.de
Consumer grade hardware: saturn.de or mediamarkt.de
The lowest prices you'll find are those from the Metro group, so that's Metro (you need a special card to buy there), Saturn and Mediamarkt. The online prices of Saturn and Mediamarkt are pretty average and they have more products in their big stores, most often at lower prices, than on their sites. There are Saturn and Mediamarkt megastores everywhere. What those stores don't have, are all the parts you need for a full system, like cooling solutions, cases, power supplies, etc... because they focus on systems and upgrade parts (harddisks, ssd's, RAM, etc... are available). Mediamarkt usually has a good supply of storage devices that have a very good price/quality ratio, like Hitachi or Toshiba HDD's and SanDisk SSD's, and often has very cheap but good RAM, but those things are not available online, only in their stores. Some mediamarkt stores, especially those outside cities, are quite nice, and almost all Saturn stores are quite nice, but mediamarkt stores in city centers are often stinky chaotic souqs with very rude and incompetent staff. Saturn usually has an ever so slightly more "upmarket" focus, and is more spatial and friendly, but they can also be cheaper than mediamarkt sometimes, because they just have less SKU's than mediamarkt. Saturn and Mediamarkt are owned by the same mother company, but they often compete quite hard with each other. Mediamarkt is the company that single handedly destroyed most small computer stores in Europe from 2005 to now. It's where most people shop for technology stuff.
If you are a very technical computer builder, you'll find everything at Conrad. The Conrad Stores are geek paradise, they are like an upgraded version of Tandy stores if you remember those. Conrad is not the cheapest, but they truly have everything conceivable in stock. Conrad stores usually have a "specialisation", in that some store are really focused towards RC or DJ or Car Electronics or Hi-Fi or Computer electronics, so you have to look for a store that focuses on what you're into. However, Conrad is pretty expensive, and electronic parts can best be ordered online through olimex.com (based in Bulgaria), which has great prices and support, and has a lot of open source focused hardware available.
There's also PCSpezialist as one of the many other stores. PCSpezialist has an affiliate store in Luxembourg, which has lower VAT, so when you need for instance an expensive mobo and you're close to the Luxembourg border and go there for fuel anyway, you can order the part online and pick it up in the Luxembourg store and save about 5 % in value added taxes.
In Germany, the economics of scale together with consumer rights regulations, make for a situation whereby smaller vendors are pretty competitive. If you're looking for newest gear or elite stuff or exclusive deals, you won't find those are mediamarkt or saturn. The smaller stores have pretty amazing deals all year around for specific items, and they also usually have much better prices for stuff that requires after sales service. The smaller stores will sell out discontinued products at a low price for instance (e.g. LG 21:9 IPS monitors for less than 200 EUR at Atelco now that LG changes the model designations), whereas mediamarkt doesn't really have enough knowledge to do these things, they don't buy special stock like that. I usually buy computer parts for private use from atelco or hiq24 or bora, and I usually buy when they have a special deal going on.
Because of the censorship system, you can't get English version games in Germany, also not through Steam. If you want English version games, you have to use a trick to buy games on Steam as if you were down under. The explanation on how to do this is on the Steam Forum.
alternate.de (they are in other countries to). One very good thing about this site is, that you pay only ONCE for shipping. 7 bucks, and you can have shipped as much as you want. One item, or ten items, doesn't matter. (I was ordering from the Austrian site, so check your cart for what is really the shipping costs. But I don't think that has changed. In the end, they are very cheap with this offer, even though some items are like 3€ more expensive than on other sites. I have experienced good customer service there. Got money back for defective incoming parts etc.)
Check amazon.de
And one more thing: Europe is about up to 30 % more expensive when it comes to computer stuff. (Welcome to Europe!) Sometimes I hear of people, who go to Croatia, or where ever and buy Electronics for cheaper, than in Austria, or Germany.
Edit: The way alternate.de manages the shipping costs is simple. Mainboard, CPU, RAM, Power Supply and Graphics card have room in one box! The only thing that is coming extra is the Case.
i would recommend to take a look at.
www.alternate.de
http://www.hardwareversand.de/home.jsp
thanks guys!!
big help, just spent nearly half a day looking at all the options.
looks like i will be using a combo. of them.
thanks again. hopefully going to be doing a desk pc build.
building supplies and tools are so cheap in germany compared to Aus.
well i got a nice vpn going.
so the location thing is no worries. i don't do a hole bunch of gaming only cs hon bf games if i am really bored.
i am very competitive so i hate sucking at new games with i play them lol.
yea germany is a pretty different place compared to Australia.
thanks for the tips
Trying to find a place like PCCG or MSY in Australia. generally cheap, but great customer service.
i am trying to learn german but i hardly get the chance to use it so it going to take a while to learn
but these places seem great. will give them a shot.
thanks for everything!!!!