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Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI

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Re: Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI

#301

Post by ericd »

ButyTh0 wrote: post #279
ericd wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s probably mostly what your sibling comment said, it’s very cheap to sow division and discord now. I get what you’re saying, and there definitely are people who are angry about the US slipping, and standards of living reverting to the mean a bit, and looking to blame someone. The True Believer came out in the aftermath of WW2 and tried to analyze why it happened, and laid out that the most dangerous group…

[flagged]

I totally agree that we need to be taking better care of each other, our system's a mess, but I wasn't planning on getting into a big discussion about that tonight from my phone.

The point about 3090s was that reasonably good local AI costs on the order of $1,000, so Americans aren't structurally locked out of owning the means to run their own models like the person I was responding to seemed to be claiming. If you can afford a desktop, local AI is in reach if owning it is a priority for you. I don't recommend that route, but it's possible.

From your other comments, sounds like you're also a "privileged first worlder" who got to go to college and attend Burning Man, so let's not fling stones. I'm extremely lucky, I'm extremely aware of it, a visit to some of the actual poorest parts of the world, where people wash themselves and their clothes in rivers that stink so badly of sewage that it's hard to breathe without gagging made me very aware of how lucky even the poorest Americans are, despite how bad it can feel to be in close proximity to some of the richest people in the world when you're not.

And if you're not an account who's part of an "AI-fueled agitprop campaign", I'm sorry for whatever's happened to you that's given you so much rage that you're feeling the need to come here and dump on nearly everyone you've interacted with. I hope things go better for you in the future, I really do.

Re: Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI

#302

Post by Auracle »

Aurornis wrote: post #178
post_break wrote: post #116

Motherboards used to be $100, $200 for the high end. Now they want $300+, ram is crazy, storage, video cards, etc. I'm not surprised sales for these components is hitting a wall.

> Motherboards used to be $100, $200 for the high end. Now they want $300+ Entry level motherboards are still $100. $300+ is a very high end motherboard. The existence of very high end products is confusing because it can give the impression that you have to buy a $300 motherboard because it exists. If you compare features side by side you're rarely missing anything important for the entry level motherboards. Some pe…

Entry level motherboards used to be just fine to use. The last time I was shopping, they all had a random deal breaker in terms of a missing feature. Maybe I’m just pickier now, but I doubt it.

Re: Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI

#303

Post by lazylizard »

craftkiller wrote: post #158
hx8 wrote: post #59

PC is the last major open platform. While other platforms like Android and becoming less open, PC in general is becoming more open than it's been in a long time as heavy MacOS/Android/iOS competition is creating a focus on open standards and all-time high strong Linux support gives people a place to land and tinker/hack to their heart's content. I think we will see an abandonment of consumer grade PC components and i…

> I already have home sever rack, and would recommend it for other people. I just want to warn people who haven't heard server-grade hardware in-person before: this is only for people who can put a server rack somewhere unpopulated like a garage or basement. Servers will make you think "wow, leafblowers sure are quiet". They are not suitable for apartment dwellers such as myself. When I was setting up my 1U before sh…

and i dont know whats the reliability gain from consumer to "server" hardware. 1 x 9? hot plug power supplies? definitely more ram slots i guess...

meanwhile..i see axiomtek industrial computers that dont even have a power button sold with 7yr warranties..

Re: Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI

#304

Post by andrekandre »

lioeters wrote: post #136
groby_b wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot be fully free if you're attached to physical goods. It may sound like pseudo-Buddhist claptrap, but it's also true. Or, I suppose, Fight Club claptrap. It's still true. The choice is "do you want to participate in society, its benefits and drawbacks". You can't have only one side of that.

The first rule of Buddhist Fight Club is that attachment causes suffering.

  > attachment causes suffering
it also makes the economy go round (unfortunately)

Re: Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI

#305

Post by andrekandre »

vkou wrote: post #58
ButyTh0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they own nothing but make believe stocks and life works great for them. The mega-rich are 100% decoupled from physical reality. May as well treat them more like tribal shaman, priests, preachers, and rabbis. Just parroting memes the likewise idiot politicians believe are the magic chants that keep gravity itself pulling together the Earth. "Omg he said the thing! Cut his taxes! Give him welfare!" Our generati…

Nah. The first two thirds of the 20th century was the science and information world. Man gained mastery of the skies, the depths of the sea, the void of space, the atom. We were taming diseases and found a way to end hunger. We started building thinking machines. We were playing with the fire of the gods. Science was working miracles on the daily. It still is, but nobody gives a shit anymore, we are in the financiali…

  > we are in the financialization and rent-seeker world now
sometimes i wonder if this is what happens when organic growth stops/slows; when (for lack of a better word) desperate people just start looking for any alternative to keep the growth train running...

Re: Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI

#306

Post by andrekandre »

rkozik1989 wrote: post #119
overgard wrote: post #36

I know it's going to be extremely painful, but the sooner this ridiculous unsustainable AI bubble pops the better off we'll be. The more it inflates the more collateral damage it will cause, and we're probably already looking at 2008 levels of financial chaos.

There are probably multiple goals of AI investment. It's entirely possible that they are deliberately killing the affordability of how personal electronics like home computers are made and will instead replace them with terminals that stream everything to the cloud. You can make a lot more money off consumers if you can turn their entire computing experience into a utility.

  > replace them with terminals that stream everything to the cloud
they've been trying for a looong time on that one. i still remember those junky "net appliance"s from the early 2000s [0] and oracle and sun making big statements about them...

[0] https://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/sonys-evilla-joins-audr...

Re: Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI

#307

Post by andrekandre »

overgard wrote: post #266
jeremyjh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the feedback loop that leads to a total financial collapse? This looks much more like dotcom bubble. Everyone knows where the exposure is.

I think it comes down to scale (there's like 2 trillion invested so far by very large institutions) and also AI hollowing out foolish companies that decided to go "AI native" and downsize and lose institutional knowledge. When the rug pull inevitably comes and the AI subsidies are gone, the entire idea of "efficiency gains" in a lot of places is going to look pretty bad as soon as they look at their bill.

if that happens, its going to be one hell of a mess of dominoes to clean up...

Re: Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI

#308

Post by [deleted] »

zrm wrote: post #257
craftkiller wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I already have home sever rack, and would recommend it for other people. I just want to warn people who haven't heard server-grade hardware in-person before: this is only for people who can put a server rack somewhere unpopulated like a garage or basement. Servers will make you think "wow, leafblowers sure are quiet". They are not suitable for apartment dwellers such as myself. When I was setting up my 1U before sh…

The noise problem is pretty easy to mitigate by choosing 2U servers instead of 1U. The latter are forced by the form factor to use smaller, higher speed fans. A bigger issue for enterprise hardware is that it's optimized for performance per watt under load, not idle power consumption. Running a mostly-idle rack server 24/7 can result in a pretty sizable electric bill. This also depends heavily on the model. Some will…

[deleted]

Re: Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI

#309

Post by AshleyGrant »

sokoloff wrote: post #112
AshleyGrant wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your idea of what "normal people" can afford is a bit off. Normal people aren't buying $1500 computers. And they definitely aren't buying $3000 computers.

An 4K Apple ][ cost the equivalent of around $7K when released. A C64 cost the equivalent of around $2K when released. Both were fairly popular and vastly less useful than a computer today. If the cheapest useful computer ends up costing $3K, it will still be purchased and will still be worth it at around $1/day of useful life.

"Normal people" were not purchasing Apple II or C64 computers in the 70s and 80s.

What you're showing me is that you are completely out of touch with the financial realities the vast majority of people face.

There is a reason that the Macbook Neo has been a smashing success.

If the cheapest useful computer ends up costing $3k, then most people will simply no longer own a computer whenever their current computer dies unless their livelihood depends upon it, which for most people it does not.

Re: Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI

#310

Post by AshleyGrant »

sokoloff wrote: post #132
iamjackg wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The C64 sold "between 12.5 and 17 million units" in its lifetime [0], vs. worldwide PC shipments of "71.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2025 ." (emphasis mine) [1] It's truly an apples (hehe) to oranges comparison, and in my opinion it only reinforces the point that "normal people" will no longer be able to purchase computers, just like the C64 was not a mainstream product. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20…

> "normal people" will no longer be able to purchase computers, Starbucks' revenue was almost $10B in the last quarter. Most people can clearly afford $1/day for something as useful as a computer.

How do you not understand the difference between spending $5 once or twice a week and having to cough up $3k all at once.. or paying 20-30% interest if they can't afford to pay that.

It's extremely obvious from your flippant attitude that you are doing quite well financially and are completely out of touch with the financial realities of the vast majority of people. Congratulations on your financial success, but maybe lay off on thinking that everyone else can afford the luxuries that you can.

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