I’m aware, thanks.
Now I’m just contemplating whether I should upgrade from 32 GB DDR4 to 64 or 128 while it’s still within the realm of possibility, or bet on memory prices coming back down within the next few years, and upgrade to an entirely new platform with DDR5 then.
At least I’m not planning on buying a brand new car anytime soon, or even a nearly new one. And my phone’s fine for a few more years.
Just get a 256GB SSD and boom, cheap RAM - albeit slow
Read/write cycles are absurd with RAM. One good way to break SSDs if I am getting this correctly.
I’ve already got a 64 gig swap file to complement my 32 gigs of RAM tbh. I just wish I didn’t have to swap lol
Those are also unobtainium.
What do you need all that ram for?
fr. huge war is going on and people worry about playing the latest games on their pcs lol
Since you asked: some games or if running heavy processors for simulated projects
Not everyone just uses their box for writing emails and surfing TikTok.
Or for things like video editing. Video editors tend to be quite RAM heavy.
To get rid of swap and mount /tmp entirely in RAM. Right now I only have 32 gigs and a 64 gig swap file to compensate.
Anyone remember RAMdisks?
remember that ram drive that gigabyte made like 20+ years ago?
That worked by putting sticks of ram in it, with… i think AA batteries? to maintain the data during power downs?
Absurd stuff in Blender
SOMEONE has to render boobies with 30k polygons in 8K, it’s an important foundation of the Internet
What I’m surprised hasn’t happened yet is RAM ICs being recycled at the retail level. As in, you could bring in an old laptop or phone with 32GB of soldered RAM and it would be desoldered and sold for cash or possibly even soldered into a new device you buy from that retailer.
I wonder how close we are to that business model arriving.
How many 16k 4116 RAM chips can your laptop handle?
4116s are DIPs. I’d de desolder those myself for installation into my Intel 8088 luggable.
I want to be there when you set that up on the table at your next departmental meeting.
32GB of RAM from old hardware might as well be trash compared to 32GB of RAM made today.
What good is all that (slow) RAM if you’re stuck with an equally slow CPU?
Its not an equally slow CPU. These boards support Xeon CPUs that first launched 11 years after DDR3.
The implication is that there are users needing large RAM footprints that aren’t CPU bound. The hit in performance on the RAM isn’t significant enough to justify spending orders of magnitude more for modern DDR5 which is in short supply.
In computing history there’s precedent for this. Amiga computers had a small amount of “Fast RAM” which was extremely expensive, but the CPU could address a second bank of “Chip RAM” which was significantly slower but much much cheaper.
We could see this idea return in modern computers.
Don’t be fooled: if RAM had the chance it would kill everyone and everything you’ve ever loved.
I think calling it a RAM shortage is a bit incorrect. It is not like we are running out of raw materials or something else in the supply chain is broken. It’s shitty AI companies buying RAM that is not existing yet with money they don’t have. Unfortunately there’s no good term for that, I guess.
Supply monopolization?
Consumer fraud?
Sherman Act cartel market manipulation.
Section 1 of the Sherman Act prohibits price fixing and the operation of cartels, and prohibits other collusive practices that unreasonably restrain trade.
A mismatch between supply and demand is called a shortage. The source is irrelevant.
Unfortunately there’s no good term for that, I guess.
Market manipulation?
It is a shortage caused by artificial demand rise.
The term was well established centuries ago.
FRAUD
It’s a racket, plain and simple. There used to be laws against this sort if thing.
It’s a racket, plain and simple. There used to be laws against this sort if thing.
Keyword: used to
I hope that it was worth it, and that America is great again. Let me just check some news articles… Oh my
It’s called Imaginary Economics.
It tends to happen right before a capitalist system fails.
Is this a thing? Because what comes to mind for me is “the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent,” which just happens sometimes
I’m not holding my breath.
We’ve been hearing about an AI crash practically since the hype train started.
People can see the trends and see how it will probably break down in some way, the problem is that the market can stay irrational longer than we can stay solvent. It helps that these dipshits seem to have forgotten that money equals abstract resources and creating new resource issues that’ll certainly put pressure on them in a more direct way either through legislation or via sabotage of required infrastructure.
It’s the biggest bubble seen to date. It has all the characteristics, and it will crash eventually.
[citation needed]
Can I coin the term imagineomics?
When has this happened before?
It tends to happen right before a capitalist system fails.
How often does this happen that we can claim this correlation? 🤔
It’s about to. The very nature of it, means you can only have a sample size of one.
And when do you predict this will occur? When should I have built my nuclear shelter so I know when to start building it?
Too late for that I’m afraid. It already happened. It just takes a while before the [citation needed] folks understand that past performance is not a guarantee for future success.
Lol sure, any time now, just one more year bro, just one more year and it will collapse bro, promise.
Maybe the usa will collapse a bit (because those people are often americans that don’t know there are other countries out there) but that’s another story.
I highly recommend staying ignorant honestly. It’s a much lighter burden to carry than seeing all the datapoints and seeing the collapse as a certainty. Have a good life, seriously.
About once every 350 years… With a sample size of 3… 😅
Better than no samples I guess!
So you’re saying which empires/systems exactly then?
Spain perhaps? The Holy Roman empire?
I was averaging roman, British and Mongolian empires, based on Google AI summary, so take that with a pinch of salt 😅 🧂
I like electron finance
Their exact location cannot be pinpointed; instead, they exist in a probability cloud where they are likely to be found at any given time.
That’s what this hype cycle is founded on. If I lend you $5, you have $5 you can lend further. Now, we each still have a right to $5, so we can lend that debt obligation again for $4.50. Now we have, somehow, a market value of $19.
Until someone looks, then it’s probably 0.
We have RAM supply shortage.
Now better? god…Yes there is: it’s a Ponzi scheme (AI companies will fail when they get no new funds to pay off the stockholders)
Are they paying off stockholders?
They are creating staggering shortsighted profits, so yes, they are doing that. And of course ignoring what a bubble does in the long run.
It’s shitty AI companies buying RAM
It’s greedy manufacturers selling it all to them in the first place and other market segments be damned.
I’m no AI fan but the manufactures aren’t angels either.The shovel makers and shovel sellers always get rich in a gold rush
If your boss offered you a raise for the same work, would you turn it down?
Not the same.
The money is fixed. You getting a raise means the money has to come from somewhere- which means the boss taking a pay cut or the customers paying more.
Still not the same, i don’t work for any of those manufacturers - and if i did i sure as hell wouldn’t care if their CEOs got a paycut to benefit the consumers. Won’t someone please pity the CEOs…
Is your refrigerator running? This is Mike Hunt.
Guess it’s time for everybody to find some grass to touch.
When RAM becomes an AI tax, “touch grass” means that labs stall, ICUs postpone upgrades, schools ration PCs. But Altmann buys a new yacht.
I don’t really think the per student Chromebook thing is useful anymore.
Kids should be learning with pen and paint, which are shown to be more effective anyways.
Obviously this doesn’t apply to every class, but those classes always had out of date computer labs.
I wish Altman would meet a French crowd like in the good old times.
Which was absolutely great, ideal almost. Just look at the exemplary equal and fair society that’s France.
Imperfect as it may be it sure as hell is better than the US.
Deleted by author
The magic potion, of course.
All of those things hit a brick wall from policy well before this artificial shortage aka fraud
Maybe ICUs will upgrade their staffing ratios instead if the costs change that much
It’s not just desktops, it’s phones and laptops and consoles
Good thing I don’t care about any of those things enough to pay the rip-off prices. I’m fine with my 4 year old phone and 10 year old PC. If they crap out then I’ll replace them with some cheap old crap. I don’t need high specs, there isn’t much worth running these days.
Unfortunately it isn’t just the high end stuff which is feeling the crunch. These AI companies have bought up all the production capacity, which means there is less low-end stuff being produced. We’re still coasting on existing stock at the moment, but as that runs out prices will rise across the board.
And used prices will surge as more people make the same decision as you
That’s assuming everyone’s devices crap out during this year or two while the AI and memory companies play pretend that they’re actually going to use up all this memory.
Do you care about hospitals, schools, research labs?
I’m too poor to enjoy any of those, all of their grants have been gutted, so right now, not at all.
First they came for…
Ha! I’m not sick, I already graduated, and I know everything! Checkmate!
I actually love that this is how my Godfather used to think. Then his social safety net broke.
He suddenly voted social democrats.
As the article explains, you will indirectly pay.
Any product that contains RAM or any service that relies on the use of computers at scale, is going to pass the operating cost (the cost of sourcing RAM) onto the consumer.
And these prices will never go down again. Even when shortages end, costoners will be used to the higher prices, and companies will be used to charging them.
This isn’t the first time that the memory companies have colluded to raise prices. It’s perhaps one of the more extreme instances, yes, but with the AI excuse going away, things will have to go back to reality, especially as China ramps up production and ruins the cartel setup we’re currently stuck with.
Fuck Sam Altman
Our last, best hope for the subsidy model was Valve, a company that famously rakes in money hand over fist and launched the original Steam Deck at the unbeatable price of $399 through a “painful” amount of subsidy. If Valve did the same for the upcoming Steam Machine, it could have legitimately competed with the PlayStation and Xbox for your living room TV.
But Valve has all but dashed those hopes through a series of moves. In late December, it discontinued the $399 Steam Deck, raising the starting price to $549. In early February, it announced that the Steam Machine had been delayed due to the memory shortage and that the company would have to reset expectations on pricing. And now, even the $549 Steam Deck OLED is out of stock specifically because of the memory crisis.
I was pretty confident that Valve was not going to subsidize the Steam Machine from the start, even before Valve said that it would be priced comparably to a PC and even before it said that it was delaying determining pricing (which was a good sign that it hadn’t locked in a contract price on components). I commented along those lines here.
Consoles can do the razor-and-blades model because they are a closed platform. If you buy a Playstation, it doesn’t do you much good unless you use it to buy Playstation games. So each Playstation purchase is very, very probably going to be used to purchase Playstation games. Sony can crank up prices on those and make their initial loss back.
But the Steam Machine is open. I can go run whatever on it. I can just take the thing and, say, make it a media server or whatever. And if Valve subsidizes it, people will just buy it instead of a comparable PC and then run whatever they want on it. Doesn’t make much sense for Valve, just because of the nature of the machine.
Are they coming to harvest the RAM from my computer?
“Harvest” is such an ugly word, mister! We rather like to call it an involuntary donation…
Your kidneys are next.
Time to install some razor blades for “cooling” purposes.
Frustratingly this is not just affecting the current generation of devices, but the previous one too. DDR4 RAM (which I use in my desktop) has gone up 300% since I bought it a few years ago.
Here’s hoping that nobody needs to replace current or previous gen hardware if it breaks in the next 2 years…
Looking at me 2 x 32GB DDR4 systems 😌
I overbuilt my system when I bought it and am glad I did. I also prioritize heat management.
Yeah so glad I went with 32GB when ram was cheap.
Same. Spent about 65 € I think, now it’s looking like > 200 €
I bought some expensive ram back when i bought my current CPU to maximize Factorio and that was about 200 €. Don’t even want to know how much it would be today. Also cheaped out and bought 16Gb ram for my home automation server last summer for less than 50€. Regrets hits me now as more would totally be better.
Yeah even used ram is going for like 2x-3x the price I bought it at new. I just checked and similar capacity (4x 8GB) at lower speed (3200 compared to 3600) would cost me about 300-400€ now. And I paid about 70-80€ back then
Me too. But I learned a while back that my cpu or slots are fucked and I can only have one stick installed at a time.
So I’m drowning in RAM that I cannot use. I could sell the RAM and get another motherboard but then I won’t have the RAM!
It’s not fair… It’s not fair.
That’s so “Gift of the Magi” 😭
Many RAM producers have simply stopped producing DDR4, because it isn’t used in data centers.
Does this mean no smart fridges?
Coz that would be cool
Mr Brightside checking in
i’d be willing to suffer another year of ram shortage if that meant all smart devices fucked off
maybe we could even see actual physical buttons on devices again! i miss buttons and toggles
You think companies would cut off ad revenue and pass cost savings to customers?
Fridges will get MORE expensive to ensure that you see ads on your fridge.
No, it means your smart fridge be AI enabled and you’ll have to prompt the goddamn door open.
Also, it costs $3000 and it’s the cheapest model.
I’m so glad I bought this book years ago
I was saving it for a retirement hobby project but looks like I will have to open it sooner than I thought.
IDK at the current price trend, maybe we’re approaching a point where having sweatshops make ferromagnetic memory modules in GB sizes is feasible. I’d better start building a couple of hangars for my GPU memory.
First the rich took our data. Then ownership, privacy, money, rights, now RAM. next will be our organs.
I’ve read enough science fiction to know the beginning of a cyberpunk dystopia when I see it…
Cyberpunk is too woke for the real world. Too many sex shops and the option to have boobs and a huge penis? Hell naw, we’re going back to the dark ages, fucking conservative pieces of shit.
Paywalled
Insert one (1) RAM stick to read full article
Flagship smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm is warning that companies will build fewer phones, period — and that remaining phones will be more expensive. CEO Cristiano Amon says a big dip in its smartphone business will be “100 percent” because of the memory shortage. Here are some choice quotes from Amon on the company’s February 4th earnings call:
“Unfortunately, I think that the whole sector is impacted by memory.” “Industry-wide memory shortage and price increases are likely to define the overall scale of the handset industry through the fiscal year.” “OEMs are very likely to prioritize premium and high-tier, how they have done in the past.” “We just wish there was more memory.” CFO Akash Palkhiwala also said: “We’ve seen several OEMs, especially in China, take actions to reduce their handset build plans and channel inventory.”How much more might you pay? Hard to say, but IDC points out that memory represents 15–20 percent of the materials cost of a midrange phone, and about 10–15 percent of a high-end flagship phone.
