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DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#41

Post by JollySharp0 »

There are ups and downs in the prices of components. Often people forget that during COVID prices were high for SBCs because of supply chain issues. Video cards just were not available in the UK and afterwards (every supplier had long lead times) and are still relatively expensive (at least there are now lower priced options). Raspberry Pis you couldn't get hold of and many people (Jeff Included) was using a website checking for availability which was non-existent for anything other than low end models.

I remember 15-20 years ago when hard drive prices went up through the roof because there was a flood in Thailand and it too years for prices to come down.

There is going to be supply chain issues due to the current Geopolitical situation (Helium comes out of the Gulf and that is need in chip manufacture) is also going to affect the price of components.

Eventually in a few years (as the article states) the situation will change. It just sucks at the moment.

TBH I am more worried about my ability to fill up the tank on my car as both Petrol and Diesel is unavailable locally. I can make do with whatever computer equipment I have.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#42

Post by doubled112 »

dangus wrote: post #9

“Killing” is strong phrasing. Yes, a $250 mini PC I bought last year is now $350. Is this pricing bad? Yeah, compared to what it was. Is this the end of the world? Not really, and we’ve seen price spikes for all kinds of PC components in the past. It’s rarely permanent.

That sounds pretty nice. The same mini PC I paid $195 for in 2023 is now $450. Seems to be life in Canada sometimes.

It had caused me to look around though. I have found the Pi Zero 2W to be surprisingly capable for Pi sized jobs.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#44

Post by tempest_ »

Venn1 wrote: post #31

Is there anything (technically) preventing SBC manufacturers adding SODIMM slots? I was expecting the Milk V Titan to avoid this memory nonsense since it has two unpopulated DDR4 slots, but it has fallen off the radar like several other SBCs.

DDR4 is also crazy expensive right now so this just depends on you having some around from a previous build

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#45

Post by SkyeCA »

homebrewer wrote: post #25
dangus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are talking about brand new latest gen hardware here. People with low budgets are always scraping and saving for deals and don’t need to buy something brand new from a pricey brand name like raspberry pi. You can still jump on eBay and buy all kinds of dirt cheap used pieces of hardware. My buddy just bought a used ThinkPad T14 with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage for about $500. You can get by with a whole lot les…

Have you looked at how expensive international shipping is? eBay covers just a few countries, the rest of us can't buy there because we'll be paying 10 times the cost of hardware to get it over here. I already moaned about this recently, but to briefly reiterate: the only hardware that's becoming available for most people in my region are Frankenstein desktops built from heavily used 10+ year old Xeons running on sus…

> Have you looked at how expensive international shipping is?

It really shocks me how bad shipping has gotten. It's nearly unaffordable to buy things on eBay from the US as a Canadian due to shipping costs, so I can only imagine just how bad it is for people from other countries.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#46

Post by squidsoup »

mhb wrote: post #23
elwebmaster wrote: post #21

It's terrible. Fake money is fueling the exhaustion of real resources in search of questionable outcomes ("AGI"). Imagine if all of these money were invested in curing cancer.

Imagine if AI cures cancer.

You can imagine all you want, but my understanding is there is no credible evidence that scaling LLMs will result in true AGI.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#47

Post by zozbot234 »

JollySharp0 wrote: post #41

There are ups and downs in the prices of components. Often people forget that during COVID prices were high for SBCs because of supply chain issues. Video cards just were not available in the UK and afterwards (every supplier had long lead times) and are still relatively expensive (at least there are now lower priced options). Raspberry Pis you couldn't get hold of and many people (Jeff Included) was using a website…

> People are quick to forget that during COVID prices were high for SBCs because of supply chain issues.

inb4 AI has the same supply chain effects as a worldwide pandemic. I guess those AI doomers that talked about it being the end of the world had it right!

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#48

Post by zozbot234 »

tempest_ wrote: post #39
michaelt wrote: post #26

> The price increases bring the 16GB Pi 5 up to $299.99. Meanwhile, a refurbished corporate laptop with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD can be yours for $199 [1] I'm sure there will still be people who want the Pi 5 but at these prices, I ain't one of them. [1] https://www.ebay.com/itm/327079631563

Those will dry up soon enough. Corporate laptop refreshes will be drawn out as they try and cost save on the increased price. You also better hope the aliexpress dont figure out a way to get the RAM out of those things because they will start harvesting it for sure if there is money to made.

For most older laptops it's easy enough, you just open them up and take the RAM sticks out. There are SO-DIMM to DIMM adapters to fit a laptop memory stick in a DIMM socket.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#49

Post by IncreasePosts »

zozbot234 wrote: post #40
jokoon wrote: post #6

it's probably time to call those old retired programmers to ask them how to reduce software memory footprint or to teach that again

Just rewrite your biggest memory hogs in Rust, it routinely slashes RAM footprint and demand for RAM throughput. The effect is even bigger than the typical reduction in CPU use. You can even ask AI to help you with the task, it will use a lot less RAM for it than the rewrite will save down the road.

Why would we need rust, if the AI can just write really good code in C that doesn't exhibit any of the issues that rust protects you from?

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#50

Post by ozborn »

neonstatic wrote: post #35
einpoklum wrote: post #12

The title should say: "Collusion of large corporations promoting LLMs with RAM manufacturers is killing the hobbyist SBC market (and bankrupting anybody trying to get a PC or laptop)". Because we all know that DRAM prices have spiked since production is going to those infernal chatbot training data centers. Same as a lot of the electricity in some parts of the world, BTW.

> Collusion of large corporations promoting LLMs > We all know that DRAM prices have spiked since production is going to those infernal chatbot training data centers I know it's very fashionable here to talk about capitalism as some hand-washes-hand big corp organized scam, but if you put that ideology aside for a moment, you contradicted yourself here, I think. I personally don't like conspiracy-theory-thinking. If…

A couple of issues, first there is a history of price collusion (see DRAM price fixing scandal on Wikipedia) and while it may be "logical" from a seller point of view to prefer large orders, this upsets a lot of people and used to be illegal in the United States (it may still be illegal, but it's not enforced)
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