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2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

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Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#351
post #273
post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

Thank you for taking the time and effort to provide a clear explanation. I’m familiar with supply and demand though. My emphasis was on “must” as a lazy protest against greed being considered a mandatory part of capitalism. Prices don’t have to go up, someone just wants more money. If you happily sell apples for $1 and see a hungry person walking towards you, must you raise the price? I think that basic thought gets…

> If you happily sell apples for $1 and see a hungry person walking towards you, must you raise the price?

if you happily sell apples for $1 and now there are VC-funded companies who need a ton of apples to produce some dubious crap and can pay you $5 per. And you are the only company selling apples.

what you should do is keep selling $1 apples to retail customers and charge corporations as much as they accept. you invest it into more apple trees and maybe subsidize the hungry people even

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#352

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…

But how do I know if a random cable that comes with a device I bought is just something USB-C shaped or the real thing? How do I know the same thing on Amazon or whatever other big retailer with thousands of cables I use? The last time I bought one I looked for one with a proper certificate but that eliminated the vast majority of cables on Amazon and I suspect that I ended up buying something ridiculously over engin…

No one explains it this way for some reason, but USB-C "60W" is more like USB-C 20V. All USB C-to-C cables are supposed to be rated to something like 600V by laws and common sense, and 3A by USB-C spec. 20V x 3A = 60W.

USB-C in C-to-C configurations require all the PD pins working for voltages to be supplied at all. So all USB-C cables that aren't the ones that actually don't work at all should be able to do that 20V x 3A -> 60W. Only in rare cases where a C-C cable is wired to make it look like one by being internally wired as C-A-A-C it becomes problematic since only USB-C has the config pins used for non-5V modes, but that should be actually rare.

I think USB-C shaped thing mentioned in GP refers to USB-C devices, like dollar store Bluetooth speakers and such. For those things, it's in fact not so rare that they come with tons of stupid quirks.

The can of worms is mainly in USB 3.0, Alt Mode, 5A mode, and Thunderbolt/USB4. 3A mode is fine. Raspberry Pi notoriously used a "5V 5A" mode that it's not supposed to be using.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#353

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.

I was in a shittier financial situation the past several years, finally get things situated to finally be able to buy a miniPC or one of those cool mini-laptops... then the Trump tariffs decimated the entire market.

That finally starts to ease pressure... then the AI RAM boom happens and now I can't even buy memory for anything I've got and I'm trapped in 8GB baseline RAM hell.

Every plan I had to update my network, my home, all out the window. I haven't seen my Steam library in at least a year or two now.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#354
post #333

Hoping all these DCs and AI whatnots turn out to be a flop, so that we’ll get plenty ddr5 at sale price :D

IIRC this wont be possible as a lot of them aren't being packaged on traditional DDR memory boards. They're being put on things like the MI350X. I'm sure there will be a ton of standard DDR5 sticks, but not so much from AI-only datacenters.

> this wont be possible as a lot of them aren't being packaged on traditional DDR memory boards. They're being put on things like the MI350X

Even better, looking forward to having hardware like that at home for "cheap" in the future, compared to what it costs right now :)

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HBM requires stacking the chips. So they need to shave the layers, glue, stack more, shave again. They also require a substrate what is even more wafers. The issue is that a error in the stack means a lot of losses. In order to get high bandwidth, you want memory as close as possible to the GPU. The more trace lane length = signal loss, bandwidth loss.. HBM is compact, and so you can stack 24GB modules, 8 around a GP…

None of what you said actually explains how HBM could require 3x the wafers. The base interface die has eight or 12 memory dies stacked on top of it. The wafer cost of that interface die is therefore small. If the process of die thinning and TSV stacking reduced yields by a factor of three, nobody would consider HBM mature enough to put into production, and especially not mature enough to be increasing stack height f…

Yeah, I'm dubious of the "3x wafers" claim, but I heard "3x wafer capacity", which sounds more logical. More steps per wafer (for TSVs) -> more time spent in the fan per wafer & machines busy with HBM wafer -> smaller wafer / chip output.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not permanent. It's only this way until the bubble pops.

With infinite money printing will that ever happen?

Infinite money printing always been possible, all previous bubbles eventually burst, that's why we now identify them as bubbles in the first place.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#357
post #17

How am I going to buy a computer that connects to AI datacenters now?

I'm sure some enterprising company will find a way sell you a computer subsidized by your data usage or maybe by forfeiting your first born

All that's old is new again. In the late 90s there were a number of companies (eMachines, for example) which heavily discounted their machines by having integral advertising, and in some cases through internet service provision. This sounds like the same idea all over again, just with a different backing fund source.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#358

So LLM profiteers have bought up all the consumer RAM for the next several years in order to deliver more of a service we're already oversaturated with that doesn't turn a profit..? I guess by then there'll be no consumers left with jobs to afford a PlayStation 6, so no problem. Except how will the AI trainers find revenue? If maximum potential is reached by laying off 90% of workers at companies that sell stuff... h…

Not sure there is much actual profit in LLMs. It will be interesting to see promise meet reality, indeed.

It's once again a market where there's morbillions of money being invested but no money is being made yet. The next few years will show whether AI becomes established in e.g. large enterprises who use it as part of their daily business. But there's a lot of competition and wishes to cut costs as well so profit margins will dwindle.

I also think most hardware expenditures done today will lose their value quickly; as we saw with crypto, hardware manufacturers will make specialized hardware so the cost/performance ratio will go down by at least 90% within a few years, possibly more.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#360

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.

> The problem isn't the price. No matter how much you pay, you can't take delivery of a chip that doesn't exist I’m confused because this reads like a denial of basic economics. If the price is high enough, the chip will be produced for you. Do you mean because of the production lead time, higher prices won’t result in increased production? Commodities like corn have been managing this for a long time… what’s special…

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