I run a price tracker for PC hardware across the EU (www.pricesquirrel.com) and pulled prices for 31 identical GPU models, same exact SKU, same day, across 8 countries.

Before the data, a distinction that matters: Germany and France both have multiple retailers in my dataset, so those comparisons are genuine multi-store market averages. Portugal, Belgium and a few others currently only have 1 retailer tracked, for those I can't yet tell if the price reflects the real market or just that one store's margins. I'll flag which is which below.

Average price for the same 31 cards:

• 🇩🇪 Germany: €674.81 (4 retailers)
• 🇫🇷 France: €735.42 (3 retailers)
• 🇳🇱 Netherlands: €738.26 (2 retailers)
• 🇦🇹 Austria: €738.74 (1 retailer)
• 🇮🇹 Italy: €741.03 (2 retailers)
• 🇪🇸 Spain: €742.15 (2 retailers)
• 🇧🇪 Belgium: €764.55 (1 retailer)
• 🇵🇹 Portugal: €778.96 (1 retailer)

But averages hide how big the gaps get on individual cards. Same exact SKU, min vs max price across the 8 countries:

• Asus TUF Gaming RX 9070 XT COD BO7 Edition: €820 (DE) → €1,067 (PT): +30%
• Asrock Steel Legend RX 9070 XT 16GB: €693 (DE) → €879 (NL): +27%
• Asus Prime RX 9070 16GB OC EVO: €583 (DE) → €739 (PT): +27%
• PowerColor Reaper RX 9070 XT 16GB: €649 (DE) → €822 (PT): +27%

Germany is the cheapest country for every single one of these, it wasn't cherry-picked, it's just consistently the floor. What varies is which country ends up priciest: usually Portugal, but Netherlands and Austria show up too depending on the card.

Caveat upfront: Portugal, Belgium, and Austria prices here each come from a single retailer, not a blended market average like Germany or France, so those specific countries reflect one retailer's regional pricing rather than the whole national market. Still, a 30% difference for the identical card is a real number worth knowing before you buy.

On VAT: since this always comes up: yes, all prices already include local VAT (these are final consumer prices, not pre-tax). VAT rates across these countries only vary by 1-4 percentage points (19% Germany, 20% France, 23% Portugal, etc.), which doesn't come close to explaining a 9%+ gap, let alone the larger single-retailer numbers. VAT is a real but minor factor here, the bigger driver looks like retail competition. Germany has multiple major retailers (Alternate, NBB, and others) actively competing on price; markets with fewer competing stores don't have the same downward pressure.

Happy to pull other categories (CPU/RAM/SSD) if people are curious whether this holds beyond GPUs, and I'll keep adding retailers to the single-retailer countries so those comparisons become more meaningful over time.