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1GB Raspberry Pi 5, and memory-driven price rises

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Re: 1GB Raspberry Pi 5, and memory-driven price rises

#61

Post by zozbot234 »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #57
defrost wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally the consumer market gets flooded with surplus at cost or below server grade hardware flowing out in going out of business fire sales.

not much use for the 100GB+ AI boards or server RAM for consumers. Tho homelab guys will be thrilled. Enterprise wise, the used servers kinda always have been cheap (at least compared to MSRP or even after discount price), just because there is enough companies that want a feel good of having a warranty on equipment and yeet it after 5 years.

Nowadays old-gen server hardware can be a viable alternative to a new HEDT or workstation, which would typically use top-of-the-line consumer parts. The price and performance are both broadly comparable.

Re: 1GB Raspberry Pi 5, and memory-driven price rises

#62

Post by IshKebab »

jsheard wrote: post #3
zbendefy wrote: post #2

What has changed now in the memory landscape/ai workload in the recent months compared to summer or spring?

Apparently OpenAI locked down 40% of the global DRAM supply for their Stargate project, which then caused everyone else to start panic-buying, and now we're here: https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/

Oof the RAM in my computers is apparently worth more than I paid for the entire thing...

Re: 1GB Raspberry Pi 5, and memory-driven price rises

#63

Post by embedding-shape »

crote wrote: post #49
giancarlostoro wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont even get this trend, wouldnt OpenAI be buying ECC RAM only anyway? Who in their right mind runs this much infrastructure on NON ECC RAM??? Makes no sense to me. Same with GPUs they aren't buying your 5090s. Peoples perception is wild to me.

ECC memory is a bit like RAID: A consumer-level RAM stick will (traditionally) have 8 8-bit-wide chips operating basically in RAID-0 to provide 64-bit-wide access, whereas enterprise-level RAM sticks will operate with 9 8-bit-wide chips in something closer to RAID-4 or -5. But they are all exactly the same chips. The ECC magic happens in the memory controller, not the RAM stick. Anyone buying ECC RAM for servers is b…

> Anyone buying ECC RAM for servers is buying on the same market as you building a new desktop computer.

Even when the sticks are completely incompatible with each other? I think servers tend to use RDIMM, desktops use UDIMM. Personally I'm not seeing as step increase in (b2b) RDIMMs compared to the same stores selling UDIMM (b2c), but I'm also looking at different stores tailored towards different types of users.

Re: 1GB Raspberry Pi 5, and memory-driven price rises

#64

Post by close04 »

raddan wrote: post #9
giancarlostoro wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont even get this trend, wouldnt OpenAI be buying ECC RAM only anyway? Who in their right mind runs this much infrastructure on NON ECC RAM??? Makes no sense to me. Same with GPUs they aren't buying your 5090s. Peoples perception is wild to me.

I seriously doubt that single bit errors on the scale of OpenAI workloads really matters very much, particularly for a domain that is already noisy.

Random bit flips is their best path to AGI.

Re: 1GB Raspberry Pi 5, and memory-driven price rises

#65

Post by Damogran6 »

linguae wrote: post #16

It’s sad to see the one area of life that has long resisted inflation (computing) now succumb to inflationary forces. Other than emergency situations such as COVID-19, I’m used to seeing prices going down over time for computers and their components. It’s one of the rare bright spots when everything else is escalating in price, and now that’s disappearing.

In general, your dollar buys a _Crazy_ amount of compute...but over the last 30 years or so, RAM has spiked several times (Taiwan plant fire) and suffered from several market driven spikes (DDRx shortages, Apple's crazy pricing structure)

Re: 1GB Raspberry Pi 5, and memory-driven price rises

#66

Post by hollerith »

zozbot234 wrote: post #61
PunchyHamster wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not much use for the 100GB+ AI boards or server RAM for consumers. Tho homelab guys will be thrilled. Enterprise wise, the used servers kinda always have been cheap (at least compared to MSRP or even after discount price), just because there is enough companies that want a feel good of having a warranty on equipment and yeet it after 5 years.

Nowadays old-gen server hardware can be a viable alternative to a new HEDT or workstation, which would typically use top-of-the-line consumer parts. The price and performance are both broadly comparable.

Isn't the typical server much noisier than, e.g., a high-end desktop (HEDT) with Noctua fans?

Re: 1GB Raspberry Pi 5, and memory-driven price rises

#67

Post by zozbot234 »

hollerith wrote: post #66
zozbot234 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays old-gen server hardware can be a viable alternative to a new HEDT or workstation, which would typically use top-of-the-line consumer parts. The price and performance are both broadly comparable.

Isn't the typical server much noisier than, e.g., a high-end desktop (HEDT) with Noctua fans?

Depends how big the fans are. Tiny 1U rack-mountable hardware = lots of noise; huge fans = near silent with better heat removal capacity.

Re: 1GB Raspberry Pi 5, and memory-driven price rises

#68

Post by jsheard »

embedding-shape wrote: post #60
jsheard wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently OpenAI locked down 40% of the global DRAM supply for their Stargate project, which then caused everyone else to start panic-buying, and now we're here: https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/

> Apparently OpenAI locked down 40% of the global DRAM supply for their Stargate project That sounds like a lot, and almost unbelievable, but the scales of all of this kind of sits in that space, so what do I know. Nonetheless, where are you getting this specific number and story from? I've seen it echoed before, but no one been able to trace it to any sort of reliable source that doesn't boil down to "secret insider…

Samsung directly announced that OpenAI expects to procure up to 900,000 DRAM wafers every month. That number being 40% of global supply comes from third party analysis, but the market is going to notice nearly a million wafers being diverted each month however you slice it. That's a shitload of silicon.

https://news.samsung.com/samsung-and-openai-announce-strateg...

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/openais-star...

Re: 1GB Raspberry Pi 5, and memory-driven price rises

#70

Post by jack_tripper »

coldtea wrote: post #41
linguae wrote: post #16

It’s sad to see the one area of life that has long resisted inflation (computing) now succumb to inflationary forces. Other than emergency situations such as COVID-19, I’m used to seeing prices going down over time for computers and their components. It’s one of the rare bright spots when everything else is escalating in price, and now that’s disappearing.

I've seen prices for memory, SSDs, thunderbolt hubs, and thunderbolt/high end USB cables, flatline or get worse over the last 3 or so years.

Most in-demand electronics got worse post-2020 and haven't recovered.

That's why I just buy something when I need it or when I think the price is reasonable, because nowadays, if I wait for something to get cheaper like I used to do in the 90s-00s, chances are it's gonna get even more expensive as time passes, not cheaper.

The days when you would wait 6-12 months and get the same thing for 50% off or a new thing with 50% more performance for the same price are over, when there's only one major semiconductor fab making everything, 3 RAM makers, 3 FLASH makers, 2 GPU vendors, 2 CPU vendors, controlling all supply, and I'm competing with datacenters for it.

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