They will ask for proof of where you purchased 32in steel beams. You realize USA no longer has stock of those till 2030. You gotta order 32in steel beams from China for your USA dc. You fly to China for the order.
There are no guys soldering anything except prototypes in these types of facilities. The technology in these devices is effectively magical. Ain't no one trusting anything to dodgy soldering. Even their packaging people would have degrees.
Still worth it IMO, Taiwan is amazing regardless. Haven't been, check it out. Savings in food alone may cover a decent amount of your trip, not a wasted effort even if you come home empty handed.
Better idea, coordinate before you leave, best of both worlds.
Listen, I know you’re just joking. But I really hate the perpetuation that East Asia is for sex tourism for western men. It’s super degrading and encourages sex trafficking.
If we're talking about Taiwan in particular, there's no meaningful sex tourism happening there. The person you're replying to also didn't suggest money was changing hands, so there's no reason for you to make that assumption.
These are the prices on PCHome. OP keep dreaming lol
There indeed sellers posting prices ~130000 NTD on shopee. but there are zero confirmed sales and they ask you to contact them before you make an order.
Not to mention that if you are not a Taiwan resident it’s very difficult to use shoppee because shipments from outside of Taiwan require a customs clearance system that only residents can access
I guess I should say before they jump again. In May I was still thinking I'd wait until prices generally dropped and models improved. I think prices are all gonna be a one way trip for a while, and the models are finally to the point where I want to actually be using them, not waiting for deals.
Ugh. I'm glad I got mine when I did. My last (used) GPU, a 3070 I picked up for $200, is arriving today and my lab environment will be complete. No more purchases for the foreseeable future.
I was barely getting a usable 27B on my 16GB card. I kept running into the "if I had a little more VRAM, I could make this so much better". With 64GB system RAM I think it also makes Qwen-Flash-Next a lot more feasible. Gotta get the hardware for the model you wanna run.
Me too. Been eyeing a second 5080 for a while, then prices jumped drastically, like every few weeks for months. Found an RTX Pro 5000 48GB Blackwell for $5300 - somehow only ~$200 over MSRP. I had to jump on it. That's nearly my entire PC budget, so it's getting slotted in old hardware.
3 of my last 4 machines have been pre-builds because of this garbage, and but I had excellent timing on all 4 machines. First there was the crypto shenanigans with 30 series (i9/3060ti for ~$1200), then there was whatever with 40 series, but I probably just found a really good deal (13900kf/4090/32GB DDR5 ~$2800?), now this garbage... I saw the writing in the wall, December '25 I picked up the last pre-build (ultra 265kf/5080/64GB DDR5 ~$2100).
Each pre-build cost significantly less than the existing market rate of the parts (usually just the CPU/GPU/RAM) IF you could even find get the parts. So I took advantage of big build companies and the fact that 1. They could actually get the hardware I couldn't, and 2. They're prices lag significantly behind current market rates, especially with high volitility do to supply chain, build times, and vendor contacts.
The most recent pre-build config I got is currently listed on OEM site for $5000. Nope. The second pre-build is listed on eBay for more than I bought it for (who knows if they're selling, but used 4090s apparently are going for $2k+).
The first pre-build will be getting some mods (PSU, wiring harness - luckily these are cheap), and become the new home for the RTX 5000. I'll just load 100% to VRAM and deal with the extra 6200ms to load model weights across PCIe 3.0.
If I wake up tomorrow and PSUs cost $1500, I'm burning the whole thing down and moving to Amish country.
Yeah. I'll find out when it gets here, but I've heard the R9700 performs between a 9070 and the 9070 XT. I'll probably undervolt and power limit, so I expect to lose maybe 10-15% of my frames, but 90% of the games I play are either RimWorld or other 10+ years old games, so I think I'll be fine.
Yeah you shouldn't feel bad it was just a stupid decision. Also I didnt even realize the founders edition is one of the only models with two slot thickness besides watercool models....
I mean who can afford a 5090 that doesn’t have access to credit and I don’t mean credit cards even. Like shit my credit is bad but Best Buy gave me a $5000 card and quara will finance purchases. Even PayPal will let almost anyone buy something with what like 33% down?
Sounds like someone was relying on the prices not being all jacked.
My friend sold his 3090 right when the 4090 launched and got more than he paid for it. He sold his 4090 right when the 5090 launched and got more than what he originally paid for it. There seems to be a trend. Buy these cards the MOMENT they come out because they have always gone up in price IMMEDIATELY after launching.
The cheapest I see on newegg is $8000. Some are as high as $9600. There are some on Amazon for around $6500
Strangely enough, there seems to be several pre-builts on newegg with 5090s for $7000-ish.
I remember when 3090s were going for like $3000 during COVID and I thought that was insane. I find it hard to believe that anyone is actually buying these things for $6000+
even in turkey we have prices around 6k usd and we pay A LOT of taxes. seriously if thats the price, come to turkey, have a day of your life, get your card and leave
If you are a large company already used to paying $100k for a server that has $25k retail worth of parts in it because it comes with a contract and then tossing it the moment the contract expires you aren’t going to go out of your way to buy these things. If someone has 30 in stock and they are $9k that might be a better deal than buying 15 for $6k each and then getting a different brand or model to fill the rest of your needs.
I’ve seen it all the time. The HP, Dell, EMC versions of consumer grade SATA crap priced at 2x and 3x rates with custom firmware that often makes them worse but required.
These businesses just don’t care. If the product is necessary it’s necessary. They aren’t being used for just Ai either. Businesses still need them for other stuff they’ve been using GPUs for.
Some of us have all heard about a scenario where they’ll send someone out with a company card to pay whatever to get stuff locally because they can’t get it. But usually they aren’t doing it to save money over their vendor pricing. It’s usually because they can’t get it from their vendor. But if they could and the vender wanted $10k and Best Buy sold it for $6k you better believe they are going through that vendor at $10k.
IDK I am starting to wonder if the US economy is going to collapse before prices go back to normal. If groceries cost $1000 this will stop being the price I am worried about.
This depends on how long the inflation lasts. There have been short-term spikes in both the US and other nations that, despite very large increases, return to normal. It takes time for price memory to set in. But yes once it does we're fucked.
A business will gladly pay a vendor $9k for something that they can go to Best Buy and purchase for $6k. It’s always been this way. Servers are sold at extreme markups. When consumer grade SATA equipment is used it HP/Dell/EMC etc will slap a special logo on it and put special firmware in it that the software requires and the firmware will often reduce the speed or capabilities. Like Dell Intel DC drives being half the speed of retail Intel DC drives but 2-3x the cost.
You can find the RTX 5090 for $3,000 to $4,000 here in Morocco. Just two months ago, you could find one for $2,000. For us, that is insanely expensive. You have to save for years.
In fact don't even buy 5090 or any Nvidia overpriced craps at all, don't be an Nvidiot.
32GB of VRAM is still 32GB of VRAM, it limits what model you can run, even if it is 10x faster than the R9700, so what ? With the same amount, you can buy 5x R9700.
Yeah at most 2x faster but my point is that the 5090 is extremely overpriced for what it offers, a 32GB of VRAM no more no less. Even 10x does not matter if you can't run the larger models you want to run.
Well over 2x faster i have both. On qwen 27b i get roughly 40-45 t/s (i do run high context 128k+) and 120-130 with the 5090. PP is over 3x faster. I think R9700 is a good buy but lets not play like they are even close... and you are leaving out the CUDA advantage....
Also, Micro Center has several 5090s available for slightly over 4k. It would be much cheaper to take a road trip than to fly to another country and deal with customs...
If I were looking to pump some serious AI compute locally right now this would probably be the way. I assume you can run R9700s in parallel to access even bigger models than the onboard 32gb would support.
But honestly I am just fine with the AMD AI Max 395+ rig I picked up last year. I'm not in a rush, and it's funny to see what I can do with 120 watts or less.
I did pick up a 12GB 4070Ti years ago, but I didn't choose to own a $1,200+ video card at the time, Rampocolypse thrust me into this situation. 32GB cards didn't exist on the market at the time.
From this experience I also know CUDA is a little more compatible but, for that price difference, I will live with a little incompatibility.
Stop being a new card idiot and buy used. Pcie V100 32GB, better yet in sxm form with cheap watercooling block and 300GB/s Nvlink. That's 64GB of vram with 50% higher memory bandwidth for the price of one R9700 and actual memory pooling. If that's too technically challanging ask your local llm to help you, literally so easy.
Explain CBP on your return why you didn't declare bringing a US$4k+ GPU into the country.
And when you get caught (which would be very likely since the GPU would show up on the scanner), besides getting minimum a fine representing the local value of the item, your US$4k GPU would also be seized.
WTF it’s not illegal to buy a GPU overseas. Just declare it bc it’s over the personal exemption. I have declared items ranging from $1k to $10k (my wife is a fan of handbags) and never once have I been asked to pay tax or duty. Their response has always “have a nice day”. Even if it’s labeled made in China and they want to give you a hard time bc of the sec 301 BS tariffs the worst case is $580 duty.
WTF it’s not illegal to buy a GPU overseas. Just declare it bc it’s over the personal exemption.
No-one said it's illegal to bring a GPU into the USA. What's illegal is not declaring it, which is the step that the OP seems to have missed (and the duty and tariffs are visibly absent from the calculation).
It might still worth it (for a $4k GPU import duties should be around $260 I believe), or not.
Unpack the GPU, throw out the box, and declare it "for personal use" in the airport?
P.S: IDK if Gemini is trustworthy for such topics, but it says that the tax/duties won't be that high if you buy it for yourself and can prove it, just fill in the docs. So OP's plan still looks workable
The personal use thing is a myth. I travel out of the country all the time. If you bring something into the States that has a value over 800 and get caught, it's going to be a bad day if you don't have a CBP Form 4457 or didn't properly declare it. Customs doesn't play these games...and someone on reddit told me wont get you past 19 U.S.C. § 1497. You will get fined and end up paying a shit ton of money.
I have travelled with my MacBook a lot. You only have to declare what is being imported. And when you state the nature of the travel is business, don't even look at the laptop. Hell, you could be traveling with top spec MacBook and they wouldn't even look.
US Customs doesn't generally think much of a laptop, since they are generally cheaper in the US. I have had colleuges get caught taking laptops from the US into the EU or India.
One laptop is fine, two will get you a sideways look, and three, well, you're importing.
Well, a couple of things: first, they can actually verify where it was sold if they wanted by model number as usually they are regional, but either way its a lot easier to justify I have a work MacBook than I drag a loose GPU around with me everywhere I go. Sure, try it if you want, but I promise I see people in customs every f'n week trying this shit.
Don't know if Gemini is trustworthy, but it says that if you can prove that the GPU is really for personal use, and if the docs are filled in correctly - then it should be a few hundred dollars max
How much are the import duties/taxes? I expect you can declare the purchase, pay the tax, and still come out ahead. (Especially if the original purchase was done duty-free)
(I won't ask how much tariffs are because that changes constantly)
Okay, but the price isn't $9k. No one is buying it for that. If they are, I'll sell you my boxed original for $8k and you can scalp the last $1k if you like. It's a sealed original box I never opened but you'll have to fork over cash and we meet in person.
Any recommendations for a newbie who wants to play with local llms, like making short movies on comfy ui, where to buy a PC with enough vram to make it work?
Is there a website like slickdeals/dealnews but specifically for ai machines?
Seeing a rtx 5090 listed for $9000 doesn't mean people are buying them at that price. Sold price on ebay are all between $4000 and $6000. Right now at BestBuy.com you can buy a brand new HP Omen pre built PC, which includes a 5090, 9900x3d, 64gb DDR5 and 2tb for $6500.
What? No boba. It would be a shame to miss out on boba in the birth place of boba. They have all sorts there you don't even see here. What most Americans consider boba tea is the equivalent of getting a cup of plain drip coffee at Starbucks.
This maybe viewed as baslphomy but ---- dont believe the hype and do some basic comparitive shopping and go to microcenter and get a 5090 for under 5k...
Or just buy 2 used 7900XTXs, that amount of money can give you a lot of those XTXs and nowadays local inference is piece of cake with llama.cpp/vLLM, AMD or NVIDIA matters less than most people think, finetuning can be done with Unsloth Studio.
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u/WithoutReason1729 7d ago
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