Earlier quoted context omitted.
That card only had 16GB of memory; its memory bandwidth was 1TB/s.
You're saying this in a world where AMD's highest end consumer GPU in 2026 is also limited to 16 GB.
RX7900 XTX has 24GB
The RAM shortage could last years
61–70 of 536 posts
Re: The RAM shortage could last years
#62I fear that the real reason we do have a shortage, I mean, the real reason for the demand, is AI companies scooping what they can so that their competitors, whether existing or incumbent, can’t get to it.
This was one of the theories behind the wafer buyout by OpenAI indeed. Pretty efficient way to make everyone panic and cut off of new hardware.
Was it debubked in any way (e.g. by OpenAI actually showing what they do with the wafers?)
Re: The RAM shortage could last years
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
They won't be, prices are high because they are refusing to build capacity for demand that may evaporated by the time they are done. They are holding back and building only enough so when the bubble pops they will be fine.
So the ML hate is weaponized in the form of memory demand collapse FUD, and the public at large has to pay through their nose for it... thanks party poopers!
I don't think its from the ML collapse FUD, its most likely from the multiple time's in the past when they overbuilt and it resulted in a memory oversupply and price collapses. The 1985–1988, 1993–1994, 1998–2002 and the post pandemic oversupply. These were all cases where shortages followed by over corrections caused oversupply, financial losses due to low prices and fewer surviving companies. I think they're taking their time and are cautiously adding more capacity in such a way that prices won't end up collapsing again. Regardless, the result is still that we the consumers have to pay more.
Re: The RAM shortage could last years
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would expect that OpenAI gets as much money as they ask for for the next 10 years. There’s virtually infinite capital: if needed, more can be reallocated from the federal government (funded with debt), from public companies (funded with people’s retirement funds), from people’s pockets via wealth redistribution upwards, from offshore investment. They will be allowed to strangle any part of the supply chain they wan…
China already has a well developed DRAM industry, as DRAM is somewhat easier than logic, and can tolerate a much higher defect rate. The industry will figure this out. Another point is I often see the money argument - like country X has more money, so they can afford to do more and better R&D, make more stuff. This stuff comes out of factories, that need to be built, the machinery procured, engineers trained and hire…
If China capitalises on the big three focusing on data centre team, the big three might have a very hard time post bubble
Re: The RAM shortage could last years
#65Ok so Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron do not have the capacity to meet demand. Also, what little capacity they do have they are allocating to HBM over DRAM. Based on my limited knowledge HBM can not be easily repurposed for consumer electronics. Translation: main street is cooked for the next 3-4 years. It doesn't stop there though. OpenAI is currently mired in a capital crunch. Their last round just about sucked all th…
The Radeon VII came out in 2019 as a $700 consumer GPU with an 1TB/s HBM2 memory subsystem which is more than any consumer GPU you can get today, including the high-end ones afaik. At that point in time, there was a whole lineup of AMD GPUs with HBM going down into the midrange. If they could make this stuff and sell it to regular people a decade ago for very palatable prices, why do they come up with the idea that t…
> 1TB/s HBM2 memory subsystem which is more than any consumer GPU you can get today
5090 has 1.8 TB/s?
Re: The RAM shortage could last years
#66Ok so Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron do not have the capacity to meet demand. Also, what little capacity they do have they are allocating to HBM over DRAM. Based on my limited knowledge HBM can not be easily repurposed for consumer electronics. Translation: main street is cooked for the next 3-4 years. It doesn't stop there though. OpenAI is currently mired in a capital crunch. Their last round just about sucked all th…
Memory makers did get themselves into this situation by selling all wafers for empty promises and alienating everyone but OpenAI tbh. I do hope they end up holding the bag once again, cause after covid and the cartel thing they don't seem to ever learn their lesson on how to have the tiniest amount of integrity.
That wouldn’t help if another one goes bankrupt that’ll only make things worse.
Re: The RAM shortage could last years
#67Ok so Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron do not have the capacity to meet demand. Also, what little capacity they do have they are allocating to HBM over DRAM. Based on my limited knowledge HBM can not be easily repurposed for consumer electronics. Translation: main street is cooked for the next 3-4 years. It doesn't stop there though. OpenAI is currently mired in a capital crunch. Their last round just about sucked all th…
> Soo ... how sure are we that the memory makers themselves are not going to be the ones holding the bag?
I hope they do, they did not have to agree to sell so much RAM to one customer. They’ve been caught colluding and price fixing more than once, I hope they take it in the shorts and new competitors arise or they go bankrupt and new management takes over the existing plants.
Don’t put all your eggs in the one basket is how the old saying goes.
Re: The RAM shortage could last years
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Memory makers did get themselves into this situation by selling all wafers for empty promises and alienating everyone but OpenAI tbh. I do hope they end up holding the bag once again, cause after covid and the cartel thing they don't seem to ever learn their lesson on how to have the tiniest amount of integrity.
That wouldn’t help if another one goes bankrupt that’ll only make things worse.
Sounds like they're too big to fail, maybe we should bail them out to reinforce that they will get rewarded for making bad decisions.
Re: The RAM shortage could last years
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the ML hate is weaponized in the form of memory demand collapse FUD, and the public at large has to pay through their nose for it... thanks party poopers!
I don't think its from the ML collapse FUD, its most likely from the multiple time's in the past when they overbuilt and it resulted in a memory oversupply and price collapses. The 1985–1988, 1993–1994, 1998–2002 and the post pandemic oversupply. These were all cases where shortages followed by over corrections caused oversupply, financial losses due to low prices and fewer surviving companies. I think they're taking…
its not like all the RAM is passing the same machine, they can gradually increase machines and observe the change in demand, and smoothly match it.
Re: The RAM shortage could last years
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am surprised we consider TSMC like a natural resource: isn't it really a combination of know-how and build-out according to that know-how? If smarts leave the country, perhaps this moves with them. The risk with China taking over Taiwan is that they mostly expedite their own production research by a couple of years.
What you say is absolutely true, and is a serious problem—but the way our system operates does not allow us to correct for it. Anyone trying to spin up a competitor to TSMC would have to first overcome a significant financial hurdle: the capital investment to build all the industrial equipment needed for fabrication. Then they'd have to convince institutions to choose them over TSMC when they're unproven, and likely…
China is 10 years into what you describe, no?