RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung • Hacker News Board

Re: RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung

#41

Post by ChromaticPanic » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 2:29 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #25

nickjj wrote: post #18

I'm running a box I put together in 2014 with an i5-4460 (3.2ghz), 16 GB of RAM, GeForce 750ti, first gen SSD, ASRock H97M Pro4 motherboard with a reasonable PSU, case and a number of fans. All of that parted out at the time was $700. I've never been more fearful of components breaking than current day. With GPU and now memory prices being crazy, I hope I never have to upgrade. I don't know how but the box is still g…

Am I crazy for thinking that anyone using computers for doing their job and making their income should have a $5k/year computer hardware budget at a minimum ? I’m not saying to do what I do and buy a $7k laptop and a $15k desktop every year but compared to revenue it seems silly to be worrying about a few thousand dollars per year delta. I buy the best phones and desktops money can buy, and upgrade them often, becaus…

That's crazy spend for anyone making sub 100K

Re: RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung

#42

Post by itsastrawman » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 2:30 PM UTC

lkramer wrote: post #9

jsheard wrote: post #5

To be fair, Samsung's divisions having guns pointed at each other is nothing new. This is the same conglomerate that makes their own chip division fight for placement in their own phones, constantly flip-flopping between using Samsung or Qualcomm chips at the high end, Samsung or Mediatek chips at the low end, or even a combination of first-party and third-party chips in different variants of ostensibly the same devi…

To be honest, this actually sounds kinda healthy.

The opposite, nepotism, is very unhealthy, so i think you're correct.

Re: RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung

#43

Post by kotaKat » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 2:30 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #25

nickjj wrote: post #18

I'm running a box I put together in 2014 with an i5-4460 (3.2ghz), 16 GB of RAM, GeForce 750ti, first gen SSD, ASRock H97M Pro4 motherboard with a reasonable PSU, case and a number of fans. All of that parted out at the time was $700. I've never been more fearful of components breaking than current day. With GPU and now memory prices being crazy, I hope I never have to upgrade. I don't know how but the box is still g…

Am I crazy for thinking that anyone using computers for doing their job and making their income should have a $5k/year computer hardware budget at a minimum ? I’m not saying to do what I do and buy a $7k laptop and a $15k desktop every year but compared to revenue it seems silly to be worrying about a few thousand dollars per year delta. I buy the best phones and desktops money can buy, and upgrade them often, becaus…

I mean, as a frontline underpaid rural IT employee with no way to move outward from where I currently live, show me where I’m gonna put $5k a year into this budget out of my barren $55k/year salary. (And, mind you - this apparently is “more” than the local average by only around $10-15k.)

I’m struggling to buy hardware already as it is, and all these prices have basically fucked me out of everything. I’m riding rigs with 8 and 16GB of RAM and I have no way to go up from here. The AI boom has basically forced me out of the entire industry at this point. I can’t get hardware to learn, subscriptions to use, anything.

Big Tech has made it unaffordable for everyone.

Re: RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung

#44

Post by xzjis » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 2:31 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #3

DocTomoe wrote: post #2

I feel we have a RAM price surge every four years. The excuses change, but it's always when we see a generation switch to the next gen of DDR. Which makes me believe it's not AI, or graphics cards, or crypto, or gaming, or one of the billion other conceivable reasons, but price-gouging when new standards emerge and production capacity is still limited. Which would be much harder to justify than 'the AI/Crypto/Gaming…

Regardless of whether it is Crypto/AI/etc., this would seem to be wake-up call #2. We're finding the strangle-points in our "economy"—will we do anything about it? A single fab in Phoenix would seem inadequate?

It's a political problem: do we, the people, have a choice in what gets prioritized? I think it's clear that the majority of people don't give a damn about minor improvements in AI and would rather have a better computer, smartphone, or something else for their daily lives than fuel the follies of OpenAI and its competitors. At worst, they can build more fabs simultaneously to have the necessary production for AI within a few years, but reallocating it right now is detrimental and nobody wants that, except for a few members of the crazy elite like Sam Altman or Elon Musk.

Re: RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung

#45

Post by marcosdumay » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 2:31 PM UTC

_aavaa_ wrote: post #34

lkramer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, this actually sounds kinda healthy.

Sears would like to have a word about how healthy intra-company competition is.

Sears had horizontal market where all of it did basically the same thing. Samsung is a huge conglomerate of several completely different vertical with lots of redundant components.

It makes absolutely no sense to apply the lessons from one into the other.

Re: RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung

#46

Post by kube-system » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 2:32 PM UTC

nickjj wrote: post #18

I'm running a box I put together in 2014 with an i5-4460 (3.2ghz), 16 GB of RAM, GeForce 750ti, first gen SSD, ASRock H97M Pro4 motherboard with a reasonable PSU, case and a number of fans. All of that parted out at the time was $700. I've never been more fearful of components breaking than current day. With GPU and now memory prices being crazy, I hope I never have to upgrade. I don't know how but the box is still g…

> I've never been more fearful of components breaking than current day.

The mid 90s was pretty scary too. Minimum wage was $4.25 and a new Pentium 133 was $935 in bulk.

Re: RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung

#47

Post by Krssst » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 2:32 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #25

nickjj wrote: post #18

I'm running a box I put together in 2014 with an i5-4460 (3.2ghz), 16 GB of RAM, GeForce 750ti, first gen SSD, ASRock H97M Pro4 motherboard with a reasonable PSU, case and a number of fans. All of that parted out at the time was $700. I've never been more fearful of components breaking than current day. With GPU and now memory prices being crazy, I hope I never have to upgrade. I don't know how but the box is still g…

Am I crazy for thinking that anyone using computers for doing their job and making their income should have a $5k/year computer hardware budget at a minimum ? I’m not saying to do what I do and buy a $7k laptop and a $15k desktop every year but compared to revenue it seems silly to be worrying about a few thousand dollars per year delta. I buy the best phones and desktops money can buy, and upgrade them often, becaus…

One concern I'd have is that if the short-term supply of RAM is fixed anyway, even if all daily computer users were to increase their budget to match the new pricing and demand exceeds supply again, the pricing would just increase in response until prices get unreasonable enough that demand lowers back to supply.

Re: RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung

#48

Post by Clent » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 2:33 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #25

nickjj wrote: post #18

I'm running a box I put together in 2014 with an i5-4460 (3.2ghz), 16 GB of RAM, GeForce 750ti, first gen SSD, ASRock H97M Pro4 motherboard with a reasonable PSU, case and a number of fans. All of that parted out at the time was $700. I've never been more fearful of components breaking than current day. With GPU and now memory prices being crazy, I hope I never have to upgrade. I don't know how but the box is still g…

Am I crazy for thinking that anyone using computers for doing their job and making their income should have a $5k/year computer hardware budget at a minimum ? I’m not saying to do what I do and buy a $7k laptop and a $15k desktop every year but compared to revenue it seems silly to be worrying about a few thousand dollars per year delta. I buy the best phones and desktops money can buy, and upgrade them often, becaus…

This is a crazy out of touch perspective.

Depending on salary, 2 magnitudes at $5k is $500k.

That amount of money for the vast majority of humans across the planet is unfathomable.

No one is worried about if the top 5% can afford DRAM. Literally zero people.

Re: RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung

#49

Post by amarcheschi » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 2:33 PM UTC

h2zizzle wrote: post #32

shevy-java wrote: post #16

AI companies must compensate us for this outrage. A few hours ago I looked at the RAM prices. I bought some DDR4, 32GB only, about a year or two ago. I kid you not - the local price here is now 2.5 times as it was back in 2023 or so, give or take. I want my money back, OpenAI!

This is important to point out. All the talk about AI companies underpricing is mistaken. The costs to consumers have just been externalized; the AI venture as a whole is so large that it simply distorts other markets in order to keep its economic reality intact. See also: the people whose electric bills have jumped due to increased demand from data centers. I think we're going to regret this.

Americans are subsidizing ai by paying more for their electricity for the rest of the world to use chatgpt (I'm not counting the data centers of Chinese models and a few European ones though)

Re: RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung

#50

Post by vultour » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 2:34 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #25

nickjj wrote: post #18

I'm running a box I put together in 2014 with an i5-4460 (3.2ghz), 16 GB of RAM, GeForce 750ti, first gen SSD, ASRock H97M Pro4 motherboard with a reasonable PSU, case and a number of fans. All of that parted out at the time was $700. I've never been more fearful of components breaking than current day. With GPU and now memory prices being crazy, I hope I never have to upgrade. I don't know how but the box is still g…

Am I crazy for thinking that anyone using computers for doing their job and making their income should have a $5k/year computer hardware budget at a minimum ? I’m not saying to do what I do and buy a $7k laptop and a $15k desktop every year but compared to revenue it seems silly to be worrying about a few thousand dollars per year delta. I buy the best phones and desktops money can buy, and upgrade them often, becaus…

Yes, that's an absolutely deranged opinion. Most tech jobs can be done on a $500 laptop. You realise some people don't even make your computer budget in net income every year, right?