I'm in the market for a new computer, and in addition to my normal suppliers at Newegg and NCIX I've been looking at Micro Center. I don't think I'm going to go with them because of how difficult it would be to return if I had an issue, but the prices they sell for have me wondering what the margins are on CPUs and motherboards.
My understanding has always been that these kind of components would have pretty small margins, but Micro Center has had pretty consistent promotions with $50 off a MB when you buy a i5-2500k. I was looking at picking up a Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 and a 2500k, which would only be $240, before any MIRs. It's not like Micro Center is a bigger company than Newegg (a quick wikipedia search shows $1B revenue for MC vs $2.5B for NE), and this promotion has been going on in various forms for awhile now.
Are the margins on CPUs actually large enough that Micro Center can sell those products and still make money on them?
My understanding has always been that these kind of components would have pretty small margins, but Micro Center has had pretty consistent promotions with $50 off a MB when you buy a i5-2500k. I was looking at picking up a Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 and a 2500k, which would only be $240, before any MIRs. It's not like Micro Center is a bigger company than Newegg (a quick wikipedia search shows $1B revenue for MC vs $2.5B for NE), and this promotion has been going on in various forms for awhile now.
Are the margins on CPUs actually large enough that Micro Center can sell those products and still make money on them?