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As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

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Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#41

Post by cglan »

At this current pace, if "the electorate" doesn't see real benefits to any of this. 2028 is going to be referendum on AI unfortunately.

Whether you like it or not, AI right now is mostly

- high electricity prices - crazy computer part prices - phasing out of a lot of formerly high paying jobs

and the benefits are mostly - slop and chatgpt

Unless OpenAI and co produce the machine god, which genuinely is possible. If most people's interactions with AI are the negative externalities they'll quickly be wondering if ChatGPT is worth this cost.

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#42

Post by linguae »

vee-kay wrote: post #38

For last 2 years, I've noticed a worrying trend: the typical budget PCs (especially Laptops) are being sold at higher prices with lower RAM (just 8GB) and lower-end CPUs (and no dedicated GPUs). Industry mandate should have become 16GB RAM for PCs and 8GB for mobile, since years ago, but instead it is as if computing/IT industry is regressing. New budget mobiles are being launched with lower-end specs as well (e.g.,…

I wonder what we can do to preserve personal computing, where users, not vendors, control their computers? I’m tired of the control Microsoft, Apple, Google, OpenAI, and some other big players have over the entire industry. The software has increasingly become enshittified, and now we’re about to be priced out of hardware upgrades.

The problem is coming up with a viable business model for providing hardware and software that respect users’ ability to shape their environments as they choose. I love free, open-source software, but how do developers make a living, especially if they don’t want to be funded by Big Tech?

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#43

Post by Saris »

linguae wrote: post #42
vee-kay wrote: post #38

For last 2 years, I've noticed a worrying trend: the typical budget PCs (especially Laptops) are being sold at higher prices with lower RAM (just 8GB) and lower-end CPUs (and no dedicated GPUs). Industry mandate should have become 16GB RAM for PCs and 8GB for mobile, since years ago, but instead it is as if computing/IT industry is regressing. New budget mobiles are being launched with lower-end specs as well (e.g.,…

I wonder what we can do to preserve personal computing, where users, not vendors, control their computers? I’m tired of the control Microsoft, Apple, Google, OpenAI, and some other big players have over the entire industry. The software has increasingly become enshittified, and now we’re about to be priced out of hardware upgrades. The problem is coming up with a viable business model for providing hardware and softw…

Run a lightweight Linux distro on older hardware maybe?

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#44

Post by zaptheimpaler »

cglan wrote: post #41

At this current pace, if "the electorate" doesn't see real benefits to any of this. 2028 is going to be referendum on AI unfortunately. Whether you like it or not, AI right now is mostly - high electricity prices - crazy computer part prices - phasing out of a lot of formerly high paying jobs and the benefits are mostly - slop and chatgpt Unless OpenAI and co produce the machine god, which genuinely is possible. If m…

I hope they do. We live in a time of incredibly centralized wealth & power and AI and particularly "the machine god" has the potential to make things 100x worse and return us to a feudal system if the ownership and profits all go to a few capital owners.

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#45

Post by ta9000 »

Saris wrote: post #43
linguae wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what we can do to preserve personal computing, where users, not vendors, control their computers? I’m tired of the control Microsoft, Apple, Google, OpenAI, and some other big players have over the entire industry. The software has increasingly become enshittified, and now we’re about to be priced out of hardware upgrades. The problem is coming up with a viable business model for providing hardware and softw…

Run a lightweight Linux distro on older hardware maybe?

This is it. Buy used Dell and HP hardware with 32 GB of RAM and swap the pcie ssd for 4 TB.

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#47

Post by stefan_ »

cglan wrote: post #41

At this current pace, if "the electorate" doesn't see real benefits to any of this. 2028 is going to be referendum on AI unfortunately. Whether you like it or not, AI right now is mostly - high electricity prices - crazy computer part prices - phasing out of a lot of formerly high paying jobs and the benefits are mostly - slop and chatgpt Unless OpenAI and co produce the machine god, which genuinely is possible. If m…

For good measure, a bunch of this is funded through money taken directly from the electorates taxes and given to a few select companies, whose leaders then graciously donate to the latest Ballroom grift. Micron, so greedy they thought nothing of shutting down their consumer brand even when it costs them nothing at all, got $6B in Chips Act money in 2024.

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#48

Post by zahlman »

vee-kay wrote: post #38

For last 2 years, I've noticed a worrying trend: the typical budget PCs (especially Laptops) are being sold at higher prices with lower RAM (just 8GB) and lower-end CPUs (and no dedicated GPUs). Industry mandate should have become 16GB RAM for PCs and 8GB for mobile, since years ago, but instead it is as if computing/IT industry is regressing. New budget mobiles are being launched with lower-end specs as well (e.g.,…

I'm reading this thread on an 11-year-old desktop with 8GB of RAM and not feeling any particular reason to upgrade, although I've priced it out a few times just to see.

Mint 22.x doesn't appear to be demanding any more of my machine than Mint 20.x. Neither is Firefox or most websites, although YouTube chat still leaks memory horrendously. (Of course, download sizes have increased.)

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#49

Post by whaleofatw2022 »

nrp wrote: post #10
CamperBob2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asus doesn't make RAM. That's the whole problem: there are plenty of RAM retail brands, but they are all just selling products that originate from only a couple of actual fabs.

Three major ones: Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix And a couple of smaller ones: CXMT (if you’re not afraid of the sanctions), Nanya, and a few others with older technology

Is this glofo's time to shine?

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#50

Post by zahlman »

addaon wrote: post #15
jazzyjackson wrote: post #12

Question: are SoCs with on die memory be effected by this? Looks like the frame.work desktop with Ryzen 128GB is shipping now at same price it was on release, Apple is offering 512GB Mac studios Are snapdragon chips the same way?

> Question: are SoCs with on die memory be effected by this? SoCs with on-die memory (which is, these days, exclusively SRAM, since I don't think IBM's eDRAM process for mixing DRAM with logic is still in production) will not be effected. SiPs with on-package DRAM, including Apple's A and M series SiPs and Qualcomm's Snapdragon, will be effected -- they use the same DRAM dice as everyone else.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/die#Noun

"dice" is the plural for the object used as a source of randomness, but "dies" is the plural for other noun uses of "die".

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