Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

ign.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 479 posts

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#431

Post by noduerme »

linsomniac wrote: post #417
Arodex wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are basically describing predatory pricing or dumping, where the goal is not to be the best but to starve your competitors to build a monopoly and gouge customers later. Uber tried that and failed. Now they cost as much as normal taxis if not more. Airbnb tried that and now cost as much as hotels if not more. And tesla is a trillion dollar company on paper only. It can vanish into thin air in a day.

>You are basically describing predatory pricing I'm describing business . Period. It's incredibly rare to encounter products above a fairly small revenue level (niche products), that haven't come from a company that spent significant time reinvesting profits and therefore being unprofitable. Same for using outside investment. Yes, there are companies who have burned outside investment on things that didn't pan out. L…

huh. I remember a time not that long ago when companies had to have a plan to actually, you know, make money in order to attract investors.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#432

Post by mancerayder »

milch wrote: post #295
kllrnohj wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building your own is cheaper, although not by a ton. Valve isn't taking a loss on them.

Yeah, just barely, and only if you don't value warranty or build time. I'm also not super sure you could get something together that is somewhat compact like the steam machine and still be cheaper. I've built two PCs in the last 5 years and both have had parts that were broken from the factory... There is something to be said about being able to hand off troubleshooting and replacement. I had ASRock pointing fingers…

I always get the highest end components I can find, and I try to stick with Asus and not the cheapest PSU. I've never had anything fail, and I do this every 5 years or so. I hate having to put the fan on the CPU after sticking that in the motherboard, and the cabling is always annoying (although 5x less annoying than it was in the days of IDE and SCSI ribbon cables).

Do you trust the brand and models of the gear you're buying? Use Newegg for reviews even if you buy from Amazon?

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#433

Post by vannevar »

daishi55 wrote: post #406
noduerme wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or: Supply and demand oscillate in a delayed way based on each other. A quick increase or decrease in one side takes time to ripple, and by the time it does, the organization may have reversed course. An airline overbooks flights. Lots of people get their flights cancelled. Takes six months for the fallout to settle where everyone who got burned booked their future flights on a different airline. 3 months out the air…

None of this suggests to me that enormous demand for semiconductors could be bad for the semiconductor industry.

No one has claimed that. Only that there is a risk that semiconductor manufacturers will be incentivized to overcommit, resulting in collateral economic damage when they fail to deliver.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#434

Post by justin66 »

vannevar wrote: post #175
bob1029 wrote: post #141

One unit of HBM capacity consumes roughly the wafer capacity that could have produced three units of DDR5 capacity. HBM dies need to be larger than ordinary DRAM dies because of how the final packaging works. > As discussed previously, the ramp of HBM production will constrain industry supply growth in non-HBM products. Industrywide, HBM3E consumes approximately three times the wafer supply as D5 to produce a given n…

>As the memory industry is still recovering from the challenging environment in 2023, this tight supply environment will help drive the considerable improvements in profitability and ROI (return on investment) that are needed to enable the investments required to support future growth. The problem is that they need actual chips tomorrow. I fear we are reaching the point in the semiconductor industry where, in order t…

> they're going to have to start selling future chips that cannot possibly be physically produced.

…but that would be unethical.

cue the laugh track

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#435

Post by ksbd-pls-finish »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #368
hinata08 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even if they're a flop, you'll be told they're too big to fail. And now, you have to bail them out and buy their HBM instead of paying for your RAM I hope that China makes up for the capacity that RAM producers are not willing to produce, so that the latter are sent back to the past (with no bailout nor protectionism)

You hope you and I will depend more on China? That won't fix any unbalanced market, it will move you another step towards a vertical structure..

It's better than depending on the US at least.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#436

Post by initramfs »

1718627440 wrote: post #380
SR2Z wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that anything you said is wrong but I also don't think that memory consumption is going back to the old baseline... well, ever. Memory is just too useful now that you can use it to drive cars and write code.

> Memory is just too useful now that you can use it to drive cars and write code. You can use the state of the art from 20 years ago for that.

Though I am sure with enough time, someone can find a reason to need ECC.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#437

Post by majormajor »

cortesoft wrote: post #255
docjay wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why must you increase the price?

The alternative is to have shortages. If there is demand for N chips at $X price, but you only have N/2 chips, then half the people aren't going to be able to buy them. The people who really need the chips, and would be willing to pay a lot more than $X for them, will be competing with people who are only willing to pay $X for them. You will end up getting scalping and shortages and hoarding. Since people know that t…

What's the functional difference between "I can't afford it" and "I can't get it due to a shortage"?

(Other than a convenient-for-some/inconvenient-for-others "let the richest get the stuff first!" shift, and just pretending that we are all fully independent actors instead of members of a community?)

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#438

Post by cautiouscat »

socketnaut wrote: post #426
noduerme wrote: post #328

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…

Someone less cynical might recognize prioritization of technological advancement over video games as a good thing.

Someone less cynical might recognize that people use RAM in a home machine for more than just gaming. Also hobbies are just as important to the human condition as technical advancement.

Re: 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out

#440

Post by Forgeties79 »

spockz wrote: post #390
Forgeties79 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>though it may take time That’s what makes this so distinct so it probably shouldn’t just be some offhand parenthetical at the end. It’s incredibly expensive, it takes a long time, and it’s incredibly specialized. You can absolutely forget the idea of a “disruptive startup” entering that space too.

Maybe not a traditional disruptive startup but isn’t CXMT from China stepping in to build all those fabs? Previously investing in that space didn’t make a lot of sense. Now that there are a lot of consumers willing to buy something they can build and sell at a price between the previous low point and the current high point. The only tricky thing is that the current shortages need to continue until the fans are well u…

It takes several years to get production and distribution started. You’re not going to see a rush chasing current consumer ram prices like you would a popular toy or something.
Post reply on HN