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

pcworld.com

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

#171

Post by Miraste »

londons_explore wrote: post #94
rafaelmn wrote: post #53

Apple is going to be even more profitable in the consumer space because of RAM prices ? I feel like they are the only player to have the supply chain locked down enough to not get caught off guard, have good prices locked in enough in advance and suppliers not willing to antagonize such a big customer by backing out of a deal.

Apple software typically seems to give a better user experience in less RAM in both desktop and mobile. For the last 10+ years apples iPhones have shipped with about half the ram of a flagship android for example.

They used to, but they've caught up. The flagship iPhone 17 has 12GB RAM, the same as the Galaxy S25. Only the most expensive Z Fold has more, with 16GB.

RAM pricing segmentation makes Apple a lot of money, but I think they scared themselves when AI took off and they had millions of 4GB and 8GB products out in the world. The Mac minimum RAM specs have gone up too, they're trying to get out of the hole they dug.

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

#172

Post by JKCalhoun »

baiwl wrote: post #10
JKCalhoun wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What will we do with that fab in two years when nobody needs that excess RAM?

I suspect there will be a shortage of something else then…

And regardless, you could flip it around and ask, what will we do in x years when the next shortage comes along and we have no fabs? (And that shortage of course could well be an imposed one from an unfriendly nation.)

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

#173

Post by taneliv »

simlevesque wrote: post #102
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'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 t…

I believe you, but your benchmark is not very useful. I get this on two 5400rpm 3T HDDs in a mirror:

    $ time du -sh .
    935G    .
                                                                                                                          
    real    0m1.154s
Simply because there's less than 20 directories and the files are large.

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

#174

Post by pixl97 »

briffle wrote: post #106
tossandthrow wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It also worked as a very good space heater.

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

#175

Post by dehrmann »

time4tea wrote: post #121

Dec 2023: 96GB (2x48) DDR5 5x00 £260 today £1050 128GB (4x32 ) DDR5 5x00 £350 today £1500 Wut? Edit: formatting

ECC memory has been one of my better investments in the past two years, and now because of the crashes it might have prevented.

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

#176

Post by chihuahua »

SoftTalker wrote: post #160
hnu0847 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't all RAM manufacturers offer a lifetime warranty? That said, if the shortage gets bad enough then maybe they could find themselves in a situation where they were unable/unwilling to honor warranty claims?

I've never heard of a lifetime warranty on anything in the enterprise space. Maybe consumer stuff, where it's just a marketing gimmick.

Oh, your RAM died? That means its lifetime ended at that moment, and so did the lifetime warranty. Is there anything else we can help you with today?

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

#177

Post by gpderetta »

legobmw99 wrote: post #143
gpderetta wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

surely these will soon be scavenged for ram? Arbitrage opportunity?

If they’re DDR4 (or even DDR3), it has no value to e.g. OpenAI so it shouldn’t really matter

The price of DDR4 is also going up!

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

#178

Post by bakugo »

aceazzameen wrote: post #157

I really wanted to build a new PC this year, which is obviously not happening anymore. But I do have 2x16GB DDR5 SODIMMs from my laptop that I'm not using, after I upgraded to 64GB a while back. Now I wonder if I can build a tiny PC around those? Does anyone make motherboards that support DDR5 laptop memory?

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X600TM-ITX/index.asp

Can't find it for sale, though. There's also a barebones mini-PC:

https://www.asrock.com/nettop/AMD/DeskMini%20X600%20Series/i...

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

#179

Post by ge96 »

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.

Optiplex's used to be my go to the SFF, I had a 1050ti in there not crazy but worked for basic gaming

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

#180

Post by davely »

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…

About a month ago, the mobo for my 5950x decided to give up the ghost. I decided to just rebuild the whole thing and update from scratch.

So went crazy and bought a 9800X3D, purchased a ridiculous amount of DDR5 RAM (96GB, which matches my old machine’s DDR4 RAM quantity). At the time, it was about $400 USD or so.

I’ve been living in blissful ignorance since then. Seeing this post, I decided to check Amazon. The same amount of RAM is currently $1200!!!

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