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PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage

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Re: PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage

#111

Post by consp »

Aurornis wrote: post #83
embedding-shape wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, what really prompted this crisis is AI, If the shortage of RAM is because of AI (so servers/data centers I presume?), wouldn't that mean the shortage should be localized to RDIMM rather than the much more common UDIMM that most gaming PCs use? But it seems to me like the pricing is going up more for UDIMM than RDIMM.

It's a valid question if you're not familiar with the RAM market. Sorry you're getting downvoted for it. The manufacturers make the individual chips, not the modules (DIMMs). (EDIT: Some companies that make chips may also have business units that sell DIMMS, to be pedantic.) The R in RDIMM means register, aka buffer. It's a separate chip that buffers the signals between the memory chips and the controller. Even ECC m…

> Even ECC modules use regular memory chips, but with extra chips added for the ECC capacity.

Quite a few unbuffered designs in the past had a "missing chip". If you ever wondered why a chip was missing on your stick, it's missing ECC. Don't know if it's still the case with DDR5 though.

Re: PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage

#112

Post by hoherd »

dsiddharth wrote: post #20
Someone1234 wrote: post #8

It will be interesting to see the knock on effect of some upcoming consumer electronics; for example Apple was rumored to be working on a cheaper MacBook that uses an iPad CPU, and Valve is working on a SteamOS based gaming machine. Both will likely live/die based on price .

edit: looks like i had the wrong understanding, thanks to the comments below for explaining ~~~~~helps that Apple's SoC has the RAM on the main die itself. They're probably immune from these price hikes, but a lot of the PC/Windows vendors would, which would only make Apple's position even stronger~~~~

I also had that misunderstanding, so after seeing this comment I looking up info. In this article you can see the xray of the m1 chip composited onto the photo of the chip, which has external memory components. You can also see in the architecture diagram that the memory is attached from outside the area where the Fabric, CPU, GPU, NPU, cache, and some other unlabeled things are located. https://www.macrumors.com/guide/m1/

And in this article you can see a photo of the memory chips attached outside of the Apple component https://www.gizmochina.com/2020/11/19/apple-mac-mini-teardow...

Re: PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage

#113

Post by hn92726819 »

theginger wrote: post #15

When did a PS5 become a unit of cost? For reference seems to be about 0.002 London buses

Approximately the instant when a single component (RAM) of a comparable product (Gaming PC) became more expensive than the entirety of said product.

I wonder what you'd think if bus tires exploded in price and started costing .25 London busses per tire.

Re: PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage

#114

Post by [deleted] »

pmdr wrote: post #98

So, like, we were already pretty much priced out of higher-end graphic cards, and now it's happening to RAM. All this while jobs are disappearing, layoffs are ongoing and CEOs are touting AI's 'capabilities' left and right. Next is probably CPUs, even if AIs don't use them that much, manufactures will shift production to something more profitable, then gouge prices so that only enterprises will pay for them. What's n…

[deleted]

Re: PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage

#116

Post by buildbot »

consp wrote: post #111
Aurornis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a valid question if you're not familiar with the RAM market. Sorry you're getting downvoted for it. The manufacturers make the individual chips, not the modules (DIMMs). (EDIT: Some companies that make chips may also have business units that sell DIMMS, to be pedantic.) The R in RDIMM means register, aka buffer. It's a separate chip that buffers the signals between the memory chips and the controller. Even ECC m…

> Even ECC modules use regular memory chips, but with extra chips added for the ECC capacity. Quite a few unbuffered designs in the past had a "missing chip". If you ever wondered why a chip was missing on your stick, it's missing ECC. Don't know if it's still the case with DDR5 though.

I have not seen that yet DDR5, I think the signal integrity requirements are too high now to even have unused pads open. Most sticks don’t appear to have many traces at all on the top/bottom sides, just big power/ground planes.

Also with DDR5 each stick is actually 2 channels so you get 2 extra dies.

Re: PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage

#117

Post by georgefrowny »

pmdr wrote: post #98

So, like, we were already pretty much priced out of higher-end graphic cards, and now it's happening to RAM. All this while jobs are disappearing, layoffs are ongoing and CEOs are touting AI's 'capabilities' left and right. Next is probably CPUs, even if AIs don't use them that much, manufactures will shift production to something more profitable, then gouge prices so that only enterprises will pay for them. What's n…

Maybe that is the answer to how things are supposed to work if AI replaces everyone and no one can afford to buy their stuff.

Things being too cheap allows money to pool at the bottom in little people's hands in the forms of things like "their homes" and "their computers" and "their cars".

You don't really want billions in computing hardware (say) being stashed down there in inefficient, illiquid physical form, you want it in a datacentre where it can be leveraged, traded, used as security, etc. If it has to be physically held down there, ideally it should be expensive, leased and have a short lifespan. The higher echelons seem apparently to think they can drive economic activity by cycling money at a higher level amongst themselves rather than looping in actual people.

This exact price jump seems largely like a shock rather then a slow squeeze, but I think seeing some kind of reversal of the unique 20th century "life gets better/cheaper/easier every generation".

Re: PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage

#118

Post by timschmidt »

whizzter wrote: post #109
timschmidt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SGI and 3Dfx made high-end simulators for aerospace in the beginning. Gaming grew out of that. Even Intel's first GPU (the i740) came from GE Aerospace.

Flight simulators just had more cash for more advanced chips, but arcade games like the Sega Model 1 (Virtua Racing) was via Virtua Fighter an inspiration for the Playstation, and before that there was crude games on both PC and Amiga. Games were always going to go 3d sooner or later, the real pressure of the high volume competitive market got us more and more capable chips until they were capable enough for the kind…

> Flight simulators just had more cash for more advanced chips

Yes. That is my point. The customers willing to pay the high initial R+D costs opened up the potential for wider adoption. This is always the case.

Even the gaming GPUs which have grown in popularity with consumers are derivatives of larger designs intended for research clusters, datacenters, aerospace, and military applications.

No question that chip companies are happy to take consumers money. But I struggle to think of an example of a new technology which was invented and marketed to consumers first.

Re: PS5 now costs less than 64GB of DDR5 memory. RAM jumps to $600 due to shortage

#119

Post by dylan604 »

dboreham wrote: post #64
embedding-shape wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, what really prompted this crisis is AI, If the shortage of RAM is because of AI (so servers/data centers I presume?), wouldn't that mean the shortage should be localized to RDIMM rather than the much more common UDIMM that most gaming PCs use? But it seems to me like the pricing is going up more for UDIMM than RDIMM.

Same chips in both, made in the same fabs. Any relative price difference is like the difference between regular and premium gas/petrol.

wait, are you saying that there's no difference between regular and premium gas?
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