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DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#111

Post by ticulatedspline »

Aurornis wrote: post #73

The extreme DRAM market has had an unexpected side effect of triggering a lot of panic buying. I know several people who delayed PC upgrades for years but then panic bought new systems in this market. The trigger was seeing all of the "It's only going to get worse" and "This is the end of personal computing" headlines. They're already regretting spending so much now that prices have started to tick downward. I keep t…

wasn't "panic" buy but I built a new comp early 2025, cuz at worst case would be complete supply crash and at best case it was going to be more expensive.

Def don't regret doing that, though I regret not springing for the extra RAM.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#112

Post by zozbot234 »

throwaway85825 wrote: post #91
Permit wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on the collusion aspect? Is the implication that OpenAI and Anthropic are coordinating their purchases in such a way that they target the hobbyist market? What’s the collusion angle here?

OpenAI signed letters of intent for 40% of the DRAM supply because they have no moat and want to starve their competition.

Except that it doesn't work like that. If you buy DRAM and don't do anything genuinely worthwhile with it, you'll ultimately dump it all right back onto the market, and everyone knows that. The biggest worry is that it's actually OpenAI and their direct competition starving the rest of the market because they predict AI research and the like to be a highly valued use for the stuff, compared to building gaming PC battlestations or whatever the highest-valued use was before. Many observers think that this will also happen with GPUs and cutting-edge digital logic more generally.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#113

Post by Dylan16807 »

bashtoni wrote: post #95

Helium supply issues are only going to make this worse. I feel like for the first time in our lives we might have seen peak technology for the next few years. Everyone is going to have to make do instead of depending on ever increasing performance.

Ultra clean rooms with massive air handling systems can't recapture all their helium?

Or is this just a temporary thing based on where processing is located?

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#115

Post by walrus01 »

rtpg wrote: post #71

am I crazy for thinking that the 16GB Pi 5 is just there to absorb money from people who purchase the most expensive version of things? Like really nobody needs that much RAM on a Pi?

No you are not crazy. It's silly to try to use a raspberry pi 5 16GB (or equivalent priced product) as a desktop workstation with a GUI on it when much better actual x86-64 based workstations exist. Ones with real amounts of PCI-E lanes of I/O, NVME SSD interfaces on motherboard, multiple SATA3 interfaces on motherboard, etc. In very small form factors same as you'd see in any $bigcorp office cubicle.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#116

Post by [deleted] »

whynotmaybe wrote: post #93
jokoon wrote: post #6

it's probably time to call those old retired programmers to ask them how to reduce software memory footprint or to teach that again

I can save everyone a few Mb of memory now : 1. Check that you really need a SaaS SPA to solve the communication issues between your team members. 2. HTML and css should be enough for 99% of corporate websites. 3. Resize the images on your websites, they're too big. 4. Use teams in the browser, not as stand-alone app.

[deleted]

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#117

Post by megous »

parl_match wrote: post #83
rtpg wrote: post #71

am I crazy for thinking that the 16GB Pi 5 is just there to absorb money from people who purchase the most expensive version of things? Like really nobody needs that much RAM on a Pi?

Yes, you are crazy for thinking that. The extra ram is useful for small LLMs and also running lots of dock containers. The very low power consumption makes it ideal for a low end home server. I use the 16GB SKU to host a bunch of containers and some light debugging tools, and the power usage that sips at idle will probably pay for the whole board over my previous home server, within about 5 years.

You can just as well not run docker. 1GiB machine can run a lot of server software, if RAM is not wasted on having duplicate OSes on one machine.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#119

Post by meroes »

JollySharp0 wrote: post #104
ttul wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This time is different. https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/#ram.ddr5.60... The price for a couple of 32GB sticks is now over $1200 after being stable at about $200 for several years until last September. That's not a blip; that's 6-fold hike and there is no sign it is slowing down any time soon.

Did you not read what I said? I couldn't even get a replacement video card at any price during the height of COVID and believe you I had the money to pay for one. I couldn't even get a Raspberry PI (any model) for about a year. They were constantly out of stock. > That's not a blip; that's 6-fold hike and there is no sign it is slowing down any time soon. How does that invalidate anything I said? As states in the art…

Ya I mean gfx card was pretty bad during Covid.

Discord groups that had real-time line counts and pictures of the line at most best buys across the country (US).

The only way I got one was overpaying and a lottery system that bundled it with other hardware because they knew everyone would still buy it. It was impossible to buy online normally as you needed some kind of automated way to buy it before stock zeroed the minute it was posted.

You could pay a scalper for a gfx card, but stores had none. Now, stores have RAM at least.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#120

Post by JollySharp0 »

Chyzwar wrote: post #110
JollySharp0 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doomers IMO are just click baiting. There is a saying that is often trotted out my economists "That the cure for high prices, is high prices". There is a consumer market and business need for DRAM outside of AI. Someone will fulfil the need as there is a high incentive to. It just going to take a bit of time for this to happen. My equipment is going to be fine for another few years. So I am going to just hang tight a…

Main producers actually reduced dram output in 2026. When you have few players with very high capital cost you will end up with cartels like light bulb cartel.

Someone will come in when the price goes up enough. It will take time, but it will happen. What people are complaining about is that the time for this to happen is too long.

Oh look, there is a player coming into the market it seems:

https://economy.ac/news/2026/02/202602288291#:~:text=If%20eq...

EDIT: In fact many other chinese companies are now expanding into DRAM because of the high prices. Which confirms exactly what I said.

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