Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

pcworld.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 427 posts

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

#71

Post by pstadler »

Barathkanna wrote: post #24
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 agree with you on SSDs, that was the last upgrade that felt like flipping the “modern computer” switch overnight. Everything since has been incremental unless you’re doing ML or high-end gaming.

This and high resolution displays, for me at least.

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

#72

Post by dgemm »

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.

It's a forcing function that ensures the middle layers of a vertically integrated stack remain market competitive and don't stagnate because they are the default/only option

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

#73

Post by sneak »

vultour wrote: post #50
sneak wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Most tech jobs could be done on a $25 ten year old smartphone with a cracked screen and bulging battery.

That’s exactly my point. Underspending on your tools is a misallocation of resources.

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

#74

Post by Cerium »

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…

Don't worry, if you are happy with those specs you can get corporate ewaste dell towers on ebay for low prices. "Dell precision tower", I just saw a listing for 32gb ram, Xeon 3.6ghz for about 300 usd.

Personally, at work I use the latest hardware at home I use ewaste.

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

#75

Post by macNchz »

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…

What is the actual return on that investment, though? This is self indulgence justified as « investment ». I built a pretty beefy PC in 2020 and have made a couple of upgrades since (Ryzen 5950x, 64GB RAM, Radeon 6900XT, a few TB of NVMe) for like $2k all-in. Less than $40/month over that time. It was game changing upgrade from an aging laptop for my purposes of being able to run multiple VMs and a complex dev environment, but I really don’t know what I would have gotten out of replacing it every year since. It’s still blazing fast.

Even recreating it entirely with newer parts every single year would have cost less than $250/mo. Honestly it would probably be negative ROI just dealing with the logistics of replacing it that many times.

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

#76

Post by lionkor »

sgerenser wrote: post #56
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? I think that's crazy. I just maxed out my new Thinkpad with 96 GB of RAM and a 4 TB SSD and even at today's prices, it still came in at just about $2k and should run smoothly for many years. Prices are high but they're not that high, unless you're buying the really big GPUs.

Where can you buy a new Thinkpad with 96GB and 4TB SSD for $2K? Prices are looking quite a bit higher than that for the P Series, at least on Lenovo.com in the U.S. And I don't see anything other than the P Series that lets you get 96GB of RAM.

Typing this on similar spec P16s that was around 2.6k or so. So if you call anything under 3k simply 2k, then it was 2k.

Thats in Germany, from a corporate supplier.

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

#77

Post by dgacmu »

itopaloglu83 wrote: post #58
dgacmu wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In their defense, how many $20 billion fabs do you want to build in response to the AI ... (revolution|bubble|other words)? It seems very, very difficult to predict how long DRAM demand will remain this elevated. It's dangerous for them in both directions: Overbuilding capacity if the boom busts vs. leaving themselves vulnerable to a competitor who builds out if the boom is sustained. Glad I don't have to make that d…

I don’t think they’re working at 100% capacity or don’t have any other FAB that they can utilize for other low profit stuff. Let’s check their books and manufacturing schedule to see if they’re artificially constraining the supply to jack up the prices on purpose.

I'd take the opposite bet on this. They're diverting wafer capacity from lower-profit items to things like HBM, but all indications are that wafer starts are up a bit. Just not up enough.

For example: https://chipsandwafers.substack.com/p/mainstream-recovery

"Sequentially, DRAM revenue increased 15% with bit shipments increasing over 20% and prices decreasing in the low single-digit percentage range, primarily due to a higher consumer-oriented revenue mix"

(from june of this year).

The problem is that the DRAM market is pretty tight - supply or demand shocks tend to produce big swings. And right now we're seeing both an expected supply shock (transition to new processes/products) as well as a very sudden demand shock.

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

#78

Post by zoeysmithe »

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.

n/a

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

#79

Post by kube-system »

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 agree with the general sentiment - that you shouldn't pinch pennies on tools that you use every day. But at the same time, someone who makes their money writing with with a pen shouldn't need to spend thousands on pens. Once you have adequate professional-grade tools, you don't need to throw more money at the problem.

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

#80

Post by morsch »

kube-system wrote: post #46
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.

Are you sure? From what I can tell it's more like 500 USD RRP on release, boxed.

Either way, it was the 90s: two years later that was a budget CPU because the top end was two to three times the speed.

Post reply on HN