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

RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 355 posts

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#81

Post by rTX5CMRXIfFG »

travisgriggs wrote: post #50

I had my formative years in programming when memory usage was something you still worried about as a programmer. And then memory expanded so much that all kinds of “optimal” patterns for programming just become nearly irrelevant. Will we start to actually consider this in software solutions again as a result?

I never really bought in to the anti-Leetcode crowd’s sentiment that it’s irrelevant. It has always mattered as a competitive edge, against other job candidates if you’re an employee or the competition of you’re a company. It only looked irrelevant because opportunities were everywhere during ZIRP, but good times never last.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#82

Post by medi8r »

codebje wrote: post #76
Cyph0n wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you won’t need RAM because everything will be hosted in the cloud and used via browser or just desktop streaming :)

Sure, but if the browser is the only thing that becomes more memory efficient that's still a substantial win.

Yeah the server needs sunstantially lest ram per user than the PC. Probably 10mb per user vs. 8gb for client to have OS and browser up.

Apple could lead here. They sell feels not specs so they could down OS and Browser RAM requirements and sell lower RAM entry models.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#83

Post by fulafel »

travisgriggs wrote: post #50

I had my formative years in programming when memory usage was something you still worried about as a programmer. And then memory expanded so much that all kinds of “optimal” patterns for programming just become nearly irrelevant. Will we start to actually consider this in software solutions again as a result?

You're right in terms of fitting your program to memory, so that it can run in the first place.

But in performance work, the relative speed of RAM relative to computation has dropped such that it's a common wisdom to treat today's cache as RAM of old (and today's RAM as disk of old, etc).

In software performance work it's been all about hitting the cache for a long time. LLMs aren't too amenable to caching though.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#84

Post by nine_k »

kgeist wrote: post #56
nine_k wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, STM, Nordic, Infineon, NXP are all European. There is a bunch of chip-making installations in Dresden, Germany (Global Foundries, Bosch, etc), and there's Intel Fab 34 in Ireland. BTW TSMC is planning to open a production facility in Europe in 2027. This is not comparable to Taiwan or the Shenzen area, but it's definitely not nothing. Some local expertise exists, even though it may be not the most cutting-ed…

ASML, which is based in the Netherlands, produces chip-making machines which TSMC and everyone else use to produce said chips. I think they got some expertise too :)

This is so, but ASML does not produce chips. There's a difference between e.g. building an airplane and piloting an airplane.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#85

Post by wlesieutre »

tehlike wrote: post #6
asadm wrote: post #4

i am working on my side-product [1] where i was exploring a Rockchip which required external memory (just 1G) which went from $3 to $32 and completely destroyed economics for me. I settled with one with embedded memory and optimizing my code instead :) 1. https://x.com/_asadmemon/status/1989417143398797424

I suspect game development will be similar - game companies will optimize their games given customer cards are not going to be released for a while or will be too expensive.

Not really new, Nvidia's GTX 1070 launched in 2016 with 8 GB of VRAM and they've been slow walking VRAM increases for the last decade.

Today's RTX 5060 has 8 GB for basically the same price that the 1070 did.

For $650 you can go up to 12 GB in the 5070, if you want 16 GB it's $1000 for the 5070 Ti, or hundreds more than that for the 5080.

I know there's inflation and $380 in 2016 was more money than it is today, but if you'd asked me 10 years ago I would've bet on VRAM capacity doing better than "the same money is worth less but still gets you exactly same amount of memory 10 years from now."

With prices going up, I half expect Nvidia to launch the RTX 6070 and tell everyone "It has 4 GB of memory and we think you're going to love it. $900." Or they'll just stop bothering with consumer GPUs entirely.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#86

Post by miyuru »

b112 wrote: post #27
rafaelmn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The joke is that Apple RAM pricing is now close to market level, they still have margin in there even at market prices, and they are notorious for supply chain management and locking in contracts/prices ahead of time. So doubt Apple will change anything here short term. On the flip side if you're buying a new computer in 2026 - it's going to be even harder to justify not getting a MacBook, the chips are already 2 yea…

Yeah, but the Linux support is still quite poor unfortunately. I'd buy a mac in a sec otherwise.

Yes, that’s the reason I am holding back too.

If Apple fully supported the Asahi Linux project, I 'll switch in a heartbeat.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#87

Post by yehat »

alephnerd wrote: post #69
Ygg2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then those countries that didn't will have an advantage at selling their electronics to the world. Or their consumers will enjoy cheap PC part prices. With possible gray zone re-export market. Of course we could see retreat from global markets to mercantilism, but that has yet to fully happen.

Or China could stop antagonizing blocs like the EU through actions like solidifying ties with Russia [0][1][2], imposing rare earth export restrictions on the EU [3], and undermining EU institutions [4]. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/xi-putin-hail-tie... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-president-xi-meet... [2] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-calls-closer-defen... [3] -…

Ahh, it is always China antagonizing others, isn't it? There's nothing wrong EU coming to absurd lengths in all directions that are leading to destruction of its economy and society only to please the narrative of few degraded groups of individuals. Yet, it is others that are the cause. Nice, easy story telling. All governments in the world turned to be on the dark side. But some are reaching new heights.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#88

Post by jorvi »

dijit wrote: post #39
Gigachad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worry is that these high prices aren't going to last long. And by the time you spend years building the capacity, the prices plummet making your facility uneconomical to run. Ram will always be in some demand, but that doesn't mean it's viable for everyone to start building production.

There's a few things to note here: 1) Prices aren't returning to "normal". The only way they will is if the hyperscalers and AI companies start to implode -- which will kill a huge portion of the US economy and lead to global recession, so, cheap RAM but nobody can afford it 2) By building up capacity you influence the outcome. If someone else enters the DRAM space, the duopoly has to actually start thinking about co…

Prices are returning to normal, probably 2-3 years from now. SK Hynix is making absolutely monstrous investments in memory fabs and CMXT will be entering the market in force more and more.

The biggest problem is that the industry wants HBM, whereas consumers want DRAM. Until the need for HBM has been sufficiently satisfied, fabs will prefer being tooled for HBM because businesses can be squeezed much harder than consumers.

Then again, as consumer you don't really need DDR5 or even DDR4 so long as you aren't using an iGPU. Its all about being around CL15 timings.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#89

Post by chvid »

Aerroon wrote: post #9

I think Europe should invest into manufacturing RAM. RAM isn't going anywhere, all of modern compute uses it. This would be an opportunity to create domestic supply of it.

Europe can do one simple to ensure low RAM prices: Allow ASML to sell all its advanced machines to Chinese RAM producers.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#90

Post by jorvi »

alephnerd wrote: post #55
malshe wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren’t Chinese manufacturers already expanding their capacity? Given that Samsung and SK Hynix have left that market in the pursuit of HBM4 chips, China is going to rule this market. At least that’s what analysts are saying.

Chinese manufacturers like CXMT face the same kinds of issues that Huawei faced in entering the EU market - the EU is clamping down on Chinese suppliers across their supply chain [0]. Where can CXMT and other Chinese players export when Japan, South Korea, much of ASEAN, India, much of North America, the EU, the UK, Australia, NZ, and parts of the Gulf have enacted or begun enacting trade barriers against Chinese exp…

RAM isn't a critical security category like 5G base stations.

Also, I don't think you've seen true consumer rage until the opposition in the EU would start pointing out the current parties are making the smartphones, laptops, TVs and whatnot consumers wanna buy much more expensive (or more crappy). Large parts of the EU are currently being crushed by one of the worst housing crises in the world, the economy seems to be wavering for young people especially, and tech / gadgets being cheap was one of the sole rays of light left.

Post reply on HN