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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

#171

Post by charcircuit »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #103
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…

In the share prices. Hope you're rich, because that's the only thing the economy cares about.

Many apps support buying fractional shares. You don't have to be rich to buy shares in public companies.

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

#172

Post by MichaelNolan »

dylan604 wrote: post #119
dboreham wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The “regular” and “premium” label at the pump is misleading. The premium gas isn’t better. It’s just different. Unless your car specifically requires higher octane fuel, there is no benefit to paying for it. https://www.kbb.com/car-advice/gasoline-guide/

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

#173

Post by lmz »

b112 wrote: post #155
buildbot wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's some new half assed ECC type of RAM, not sure the name. Was reading a series of displeased posts about it. Can't seem to find it now.

On die ECC for DDR5. Which corrects locally but does not signal the host or deal with data between the die and the CPU.

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

#174

Post by crims0n »

AngryData wrote: post #168
kristianp wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, stupid comparison really. Also 64GB is pretty high-end from a consumer perspective. Most would do just fine with 32 as 2x16GB.

Maybe if they expect to upgrade within a few years it would be fine. But when I built my current computer 11 years ago I also didn't expect to need 16 gb of ram and only bought 8. 5 years later 16 gb of memory was a requirement for both software and games I was playing. And now 11 years later 16 gigs is not enough for fairly "simple" 3d modelling and 32 gigs is pretty close to the minimum requirement to fully utilize…

Speaking of 11 years old, I just put my 4790k out to pasture. It was a good CPU for a long time, but it got a little long in the tooth for modern workloads.

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

#175

Post by aspenmayer »

PunchyHamster wrote: post #126
zozbot234 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, this seems to be mostly a spike in retail prices, not wholesale DRAM contracts that are only up 60% or so in the past few months according to Samsung. So we should most likely place at least some fraction of the blame on our fellow consumers for overreacting to the news and hoarding RAM at overinflated prices. DRAM sticks are the new toilet paper.

"only" ? Nobody is hoarding RAM (at least yet, consumers seem mostly blindsided by it), this is directly caused by industry thirst for AI

Lenovo Stockpiling PC Memory Due to 'Unprecedented' AI Squeeze - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46041505

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

#176

Post by balls187 »

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…

I picked a really great time to give up PC Gaming for writing.

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

#177

Post by codebje »

Aurornis wrote: post #96
timschmidt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can see it that way, granted. When I zoom all the way out, all of consumer computation has existed as sort of an addendum or ancillary organ to the big customers: government, large corporations, etc. All our beloved consumer tech started out as absurdly high priced niche stuff for them. We've been sold the overflow capacity and binned parts. And that seems to be a more-or-less natural consequence of large purchas…

> When I zoom all the way out, all of consumer computation has existed as sort of an addendum or ancillary organ to the big customers: government, large corporations, etc. Perfectly stated. I think comments like the one above come from a mentality that the individual consumer should be the center of the computing universe and big purchasers should be forced to live with the leftovers. What's really happening is the b…

The iPhone wasn't designed or marketed to large corporations. 3dfx didn't invent the voodoo for B2B sales. IBM didn't branch out from international business machines to the personal computer for business sales. The compact disc wasn't invented for corporate storage.

Computing didn't take off until it shrank from the giant, unreliable beasts of machines owned by a small number of big corporations to the home computers of the 70s.

There's a lot more of us than them.

There's a gold rush market for GPUs and DRAM. It won't last forever, but while it does high volume sales at high margins will dominate supply. GPUs are still inflated from the crypto rush, too.

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

#178

Post by embedding-shape »

wmf wrote: post #67
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.

UDIMM and RDIMM use the same DRAM chips. And my understanding is that the fabs can switch between DDR5, LPDDR5, and maybe HBM as needed. This means high demand for one type can create a shortage of the others.

> This means high demand for one type can create a shortage of the others.

Wouldn't that mean that a shortage of DRAM chips should cause price difference in all of them? Not sure that'd explain why RDIMM prices aren't raising as sharply as UDIMM. That the fab and assembly lines have transitioned into making other stuff makes sense why'd there be a difference though, as bradfa mentioned in their reply.

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

#179

Post by loeg »

charcircuit wrote: post #171
smallmancontrov wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the share prices. Hope you're rich, because that's the only thing the economy cares about.

Many apps support buying fractional shares. You don't have to be rich to buy shares in public companies.

It's not like the individual share price of e.g. VTI or FZROX is all that high to begin with.

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

#180

Post by throwaway48476 »

overfeed wrote: post #169
throwaway2037 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Manufacturers don't actually want too many extremely long term contracts because it would limit their ability to respond to market price changes. I don't agree with this sentence. Why would not the same apply advice to oil and gas contracts? If you look at the size and duration of oil and gas contracts for major energy importers, they often run 10 years or more. Some of the contracts in Japan and Korea are so large…

> Why would not the same apply advice to oil and gas contracts? Because oil & gas suppliers only ever sell one product, and memory fabs can dynamically switch product mix in response to supply & demand to optimize profits. The same sand, power and water can make DDR4, HBM or DDR5

Oil and gas suppliers have several products: gas, diesel, jet a, propane, naptha, asphalt etc.
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