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Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening

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Re: Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening

#291

Post by david-gpu »

matthews3 wrote: post #248
david-gpu wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the same factory produce enterprise (i.e. ECC) and consumer (non-ECC) DRAM? If there is high demand for the former due to AI, they can increase production to generate higher profits. This cuts the production capacity of consumer DRAM, and lead to higher prices in that segment too. Simple supply & demand at work.

At the silicon level, it is the same. Each memory DIMM/stick is made up of multiple DRAM chip. ECC DIMMs have an extra chip for storing the error correcting parity data. The bottleneck is with the chips and not the DIMMs. Chip fabs are expensive and time consuming, while making PCBs and placing components down onto them is much easier to get into.

Got it now, thanks!

Re: Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening

#292

Post by darkwater »

ajb wrote: post #109
sbarre wrote: post #6

I'm so mad about this, I need DDR5 for a new mini-PC I bought and prices have literally gone up by 2.5x.. 128GB used to be 400$ in June, and now it's over $1,000 for the same 2x64GB set.. I have no idea if/when prices will come back down but it sucks.

Dram alternates between feast and famine; it's the nature of a business when the granularity of investment is so huge (you have a fab or you don't, and they cost billions -maybe trillions by now). So, it will swing back. Unfortunately it looks like maybe 3-5 years on average, from some analysis here: https://storagesearch.com/memory-boom-bust-cycles.html (That's just me eyeballing it, feel free to do the math)

My guess is that they will plummet down when the AI bubble bursts.

Re: Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening

#293

Post by dangus »

Yokolos wrote: post #175
ajb wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dram alternates between feast and famine; it's the nature of a business when the granularity of investment is so huge (you have a fab or you don't, and they cost billions -maybe trillions by now). So, it will swing back. Unfortunately it looks like maybe 3-5 years on average, from some analysis here: https://storagesearch.com/memory-boom-bust-cycles.html (That's just me eyeballing it, feel free to do the math)

I wouldn't be so sure. I've seen analyses making the case that this new phase is unlike previous cycles and DRAM makers will be far less willing to invest significantly in new capacity, especially into consumer DRAM over more enterprise DRAM or HBM (and even there there's still a significant risk of the AI bubble popping). The shortage could last a decade. Right now DRAM makers are benefiting to an extreme degree sin…

Anytime somebody is making a prediction for the tech industry involving a decade timespan I pull out my Fedora of Doubt and tip my cap to m’lady.

Re: Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening

#294

Post by amelius »

ant6n wrote: post #250
Roark66 wrote: post #235

I'm especially annoyed that this is most likely intentional. (Not at all)openAI saw they are getting behind their competitors (gpt 5 and 5.1 were progressively worse for my use case - actual problem solving and tweaking existing scripts) are getting better. (Claude and sonnet were miles ahead and I used gpt only due to lower price). Now not only open weights models like Qwen3 and kimik2 exceeded their capability and…

Uh, the argument ended in some sort of stroke there. Kinda curious how the story

Looks like they ran out of RAM.

Re: Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening

#295

Post by skeeter2020 »

shevy-java wrote: post #284

So AI drives prices up, directly and indirectly. I am not happy, in part because I actually need to purchase new hardware (eventually, and unfortunately quite soon, probably next year already, again). I think there must be a tax of all those AI corporations - they cost us as society WAY too much. We need to bring this into the discussion; right now lobbyists such as the orange king want to ban all discussions therein…

>> I am not happy ... I think there must be a tax of all those AI corporations

There are a lot of elements to this AI shit-show that I don't like or worry about, but taxing them specifically because they're driving up the price of memory when you want some is not really a "societal cost". You then mention something about "general taxpayers" - didn't you just lobby to make them a super tax payer? Go ahead and rant, but seems like pretty basic supply & demand, and keep some perspective; it's computer memory not bread.

Re: Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening

#296

Post by srean »

laterium wrote: post #156
Tempest1981 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we all need 128GB now? I was happy with 32. Close a few Chrome tabs, and save some DDR5 for the rest of us. :-)

Why did you waste all your money on 32gb when 4gb is enough? Why did we all need 32gb?

Bloated OS loaded with things the buyer does not need and bloated JS ecosystem probably.

Re: Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening

#297

Post by octoberfranklin »

Ray20 wrote: post #267
octoberfranklin wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the mere potential for small companies to pop up is enough to police the big company's behavior. If that were true, "you're in Amazon's kill zone" wouldn't be something VC's say to startups. And yet, they do say that.

And yet, startups exist.

because they stay out of the kill zone

Re: Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening

#298

Post by octoberfranklin »

refurb wrote: post #153
octoberfranklin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A tax on scale . Yeah I know HN is going to hate me for saying that. If a big company and a few small companies all have identical costs for producing a product, society is better served by having it produced by the few small companies than the one big company. Once "better served" is quantified, you know the coefficient for taxation. Make no mistake, this coefficient will be a political football, and will be fought…

> If a big company and a few small companies all have identical costs for producing a product, society is better served by having it produced by the few small companies than the one big company. How so? Costs will be higher with multiple small products, resulting in higher costs for customers. That's the opposite of "society is served better". We draw the line at monopolies, which makes sense.

> > all have identical costs

> Costs will be higher

Read it again, please.

Re: Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening

#299

Post by InTheArena »

I pre-ordered and picked up a framework desktop with 128GB of DDR5-8000 inside of it. This is the type of system that is the a indirect byproduct of the change towards AI - it may not have been what AM was originally intending with the AI Max 395+ line - but it definitly is the kind of optimized thinking that will drive AI into the hands of consumers.

That's part of the reason I think this boom-bust cycle might be a bit different. Hopefully, Intel can use some of its capacity that they have coming up in the foundry to service this need.

Re: Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening

#300

Post by ksec »

ajb wrote: post #109
sbarre wrote: post #6

I'm so mad about this, I need DDR5 for a new mini-PC I bought and prices have literally gone up by 2.5x.. 128GB used to be 400$ in June, and now it's over $1,000 for the same 2x64GB set.. I have no idea if/when prices will come back down but it sucks.

Dram alternates between feast and famine; it's the nature of a business when the granularity of investment is so huge (you have a fab or you don't, and they cost billions -maybe trillions by now). So, it will swing back. Unfortunately it looks like maybe 3-5 years on average, from some analysis here: https://storagesearch.com/memory-boom-bust-cycles.html (That's just me eyeballing it, feel free to do the math)

I am so glad both top rated and majority of comments on HN finally understands DRAM industry instead of constant DRAM is a cartel that is why things are expensive.

Also worth mentioning DRAM and NAND's profit from Samsung is what keep the Samsung Foundry fighting TSMC. Especially for those who thinks TSMC is somehow a monopoly.

Another things to point out which is not mentioned yet, China is working on both DRAM and NAND. Both LPDDR5 and Stacked NAND are already in production and waiting for yield and scale. Higher Price will finally be perfect timing for them to join the commodity DRAM and NAND race. Good for consumer I suppose, not so good for a lot of other things which I wont go into.

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