2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out • Hacker News Board

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#241

Post by daishi55 » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 2:02 AM UTC

vannevar wrote: post #190

freeone3000 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is they could charge more. They could. And people would pay it.

The problem isn't the price. No matter how much you pay, you can't take delivery of a chip that doesn't exist. Now, you could raise prices to the point where you destroy demand. But that's a tricky window to maneuver through.

I don’t understand how there being essentially unlimited demand for their products that far exceeds supply and is driving up prices accordingly is somehow a bad sign for the industry?

> Now, you could raise prices to the point where you destroy demand.

You know supply and demand is like a curve right, you can find an optimal equilibrium? It’s not a cliff that you can fall off.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#242

Post by lofties » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 2:02 AM UTC

beloch wrote: post #60

AI companies would do well to realize that civil disobedience is a thing. Take what's currently happening to Flock cameras as an object lesson. People are so fed up with Flock that they're cutting their cameras down en masse, sometimes wiping them clean from entire jurisdictions. Tens of thousands of other people in those jurisdictions are cheering them on, even offering alibis for them before they've been caught. La…

> AI companies would do well to realize that civil disobedience is a thing.

Civil disobedience? In this economy?

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#243

Post by seba_dos1 » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 2:05 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #224

seba_dos1 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pick a USB cable and buy it from ANY retailer, let's make it easier, buy a USB-C cable. Okay, let's assume it's a USB-C cable and not just something USB-C shaped that pretends to be one. > Does it support power delivery? Yes. > If so, how many watts? Always at least 60W (3A). Up to 240W if it's e-marked. > What is the data rate Depends whether it's a USB 2.0-only cable (480Mbps) or a complete cable (20Gbps). Possib…

I don't know why you got downvoted so much. There's no such thing as a 5 watt USB cable from a reputable source and people need to stop acting like there is. 60 is a very good baseline. There's no such thing as a power only USB cable either. If we're counting fake products then we need to count those RGB sticks that have no RAM in them.

You couldn't even make a 5W USB-C cable if you tried. You'd have to make the wires so thin that it would burn at above 1A I guess, and it would have no way to signal the device to limit its power consumption to 1A, so it would just burn once you tried to use it. All you need to handle 60W is to make three electrical connections between the ends, and the cable won't work at all if you miss any.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#244

Post by Melatonic » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 2:16 AM UTC

undersuit wrote: post #165

1970-01-01 wrote: post #158

Seems like we need a USB equivalent standard to RAM sticks. I have lots and lots of old (1-2GB), intercompatible sticks sitting. Sometimes you just need the space and not the speed.

Grab the cheapest Intel Optane M10 drive from eBay with a 1x PCI-E adapter from them too. 16GB of Swap for less than $20. The M10 are over produced and only PCI-E 3.0 2x lane devices but 16GB of DDR5 is going to cost over $200. You can do the same with USB-C M.2 adapters but the adapters cost more and eww USB for Swap, hope the device never drops.

Is that really competitive with just doing a pciexpress card with faster M2 SSD ?

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#245

Post by somat » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 2:17 AM UTC

docjay wrote: post #236

HumblyTossed wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can only make X number of widgets, you must increase the price until demand stabilizes at X.

Why must you increase the price?

It is the other way around, When people want something they are willing to pay more for it. The manufacturer wants to sell to the person that will pay the most. While the person wants to buy from the manufacturer that charges the least. As such when the manufacturing capacity is below demand the price goes up until the item is worth what people will pay for it(at large, statistically, it works like an auction). The promise of capitalism is that as the price goes up it should incentivize manufacturing capacity to go up and as the capacity meets demand and the manufactures start to fight each other to be the one to sell the item the price goes down.

Sometimes this works and sometimes it does not.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#246

Post by pdimitar » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 2:18 AM UTC

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #238

pdimitar wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you just get a MB only for now? What mandates an entire new batch of hardware?

I’ve been pricing out my various options but the notion of replacing a 10 year old motherboard with another 10 year old motherboard is kinda lousy. The PC I replaced when I bought this one was such a huge improvement. My options basically boils down to fixing trash that’s falling apart or a sidegrade at best for the same price as what I bought a beast of a PC for 10 freaking years ago. Depressing.

Oh I agree, I am just saying that if you really did not want to spend, there are obviously options. I am thinking of promoting my super old and long-time-not-used PC with an i7-3770 and 32GB DDR3 RAM to a server and I bought a ~$45 motherboard for it some months ago, now I have to bother finding it a good NAS case and buy at least two HDDs (the real cost here).

Point is, quite a lot of hardware can still do a lot. I have a Ryzen 5500U-based laptop that still outperforms the PCs of most people that I know (non-tech people).

Though in my case I feel like I have to get a loan to buy a workstation + an actual gaming PC for my wife. That all is beginning to look like at least $15k... yikes. But I am not sure I can wait until 2028 to see if things _start_ normalizing... Depressing indeed.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#247

Post by dismalaf » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 2:19 AM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #225

HumblyTossed wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what consumers are always told. Prices go up as demand goes up or scarcity increases.

But once you get past econ101, you are taught how markets react to percieved bubbles, how those with near monopolies would rather pocket a windfall now than risk investing in future expansions.

Well, look at AI. It sure looks like a bubble, why wouldn't every fab just profiteer now?

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#248

Post by HaloZero » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 2:19 AM UTC

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #211

My own PC died and now I’m locked out of my entire Steam library for the foreseeable future. A $2000 PC is literally a downgrade from what I bought 10 freaking years ago. What the freaking hell.

How does the steam machine compare to building your own?

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#249

Post by Jgrubb » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 2:21 AM UTC

daishi55 wrote: post #241

vannevar wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't the price. No matter how much you pay, you can't take delivery of a chip that doesn't exist. Now, you could raise prices to the point where you destroy demand. But that's a tricky window to maneuver through.

I don’t understand how there being essentially unlimited demand for their products that far exceeds supply and is driving up prices accordingly is somehow a bad sign for the industry? > Now, you could raise prices to the point where you destroy demand. You know supply and demand is like a curve right, you can find an optimal equilibrium? It’s not a cliff that you can fall off.

I guess we'll see about that.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#250

Post by raincole » Sat, Aug 08, 2026, 2:22 AM UTC

rapjr9 wrote: post #197

Aurornis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the impact will be small. The average consumer isn't purchasing a lot of products with a lot of RAM every year. Their 8GB of RAM phones will go up in price a little bit, but people aren't buying phones every year or even every other year. So if the price of the 8GB of LPDDR went from $40 to $160 and it's all passed on to the consumer buying a new phone every 4 years, that's an extra $30/year in spending. Mos…

The headline says "sold out". That doesn't mean prices will go up, that means the memory will not be available at all for many companies and the products they make will not be available to consumers.

It means prices will go up and that's it. If you read "sold out" and immediately believe "no company will have memory in 2027 besides AI companies" then I think you have to reconnect your thoughts to the reality.