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

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

#101

Post by ceejayoz »

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…

> 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?

Yes. This is how we get websites and apps that don't run on a normal person's computer, because the devs never noticed their performance issues on their monster machines.

Modern computing would be a lot better if devs had to use old phones, basic computers, and poor internet connections more often.

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

#102

Post by simlevesque »

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.

I've had this with gen5 PCIe SSDs recently. My T710 is so fast it's hard to believe. But you need to have a lot of data to make it worth.

Example:

    > time du -sh .
    737G .
    ________________________
    Executed in   24.63 secs
And on my laptop that has a gen3, lower spec NVMe:

    > time du -sh .
    304G .
    ________________________
    Executed in   80.86 secs
It's almost 10 times faster. The CPU must have something to do with it too but they're both Ryzen 9.

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

#103

Post by EMM_386 »

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…

Isn't this how South Korean chaebols work?

They operate with tension. They're supposed to have unified strategic direction from the top, but individual subsidiaries are also expected to be profit centers that compete in the market.

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

#105

Post by crazygringo »

asenna wrote: post #62
Barathkanna wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know it's not the same. But I think a lot of people had a similar feeling going from Intel-Macbooks to Apple Silicon. An insane upgrade that I still can't believe.

This. My M1 MacBook felt like a similarly shocking upgrade -- probably not quite as much as my first SSD did, but still the only other time when I've thought, "holy sh*t, this is a whole different thing".

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

#106

Post by briffle »

tossandthrow wrote: post #54
kube-system wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you were in minimum wage jn the 90s your lifelihood likely didn't rely on Pentium processors. Also, it is frightening how close that is to current day minimum wage.

Yep, I had a Cyrix processor in mine during that time. Slackware didn't care.

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

#107

Post by crazygringo »

macNchz wrote: post #75
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…

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 enviro…

> This is self indulgence justified as « investment ».

Exactly that. There's zero way that level of spending is paying for itself in increased productivity, considering they'll still be 99% as productive spending something like a tenth of that.

It's their luxury spending. Fine. Just don't pretend it's something else, or tell others they ought to be doing the same, right?

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

#108

Post by cestith »

Cerium wrote: post #74
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.

At home some of my systems are ewaste from former employers who would just give it to employees rather than paying for disposal. A couple are eBay finds. I do have one highish-end system at a time specifically for games. Some of my systems are my old hardware reassembled after all the parts for gaming have been upgraded over the years.

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

#109

Post by bombcar »

jfindper wrote: post #96
kotaKat wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. I’m not allowed to own a home computer to try to further my own learning and education and knowledge then. Guess I’ll go fuck myself now then.

They're just using this comment section to brag about how well off they are, I wouldn't worry too much. They're completely out of touch.

It's the "how much can the banana cost, $10?" of HN.

The point they're trying to make is a valid one - a company should be willing to spend "some money" if it saves time of the employee they're paying.

The problem is usually that the "IT Budget" is a separate portion/group of the company than the "Salary" budget, and the "solution" can be force a certain dollar amount has to be spent each year (with one year carry-forward, perhaps) so that the employees always have good access to good equipment.

(Some companies are so bad at this that a senior engineer of 10+ years will have a ten year old PoS computer, and a new intern will get a brand new M5 MacBook.)

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

#110

Post by _aavaa_ »

StableAlkyne wrote: post #66
marcosdumay wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think what the GP was referring to was the "new" owner of Sears, who reorganized the company into dozens of independent business units in the early 2010s (IT, HR, apparel, electronics, etc). Not departments, either; full-on internal businesses intended as a microcosm of the free market. Each of these units were then given access to an internal "market" and directed to compete with each other for funding. The idea w…

Yes, this is what I was referring to. I should have provided more context, thanks for doing so.
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