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RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

arstechnica.com

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Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#181

Post by vv_ »

medi8r wrote: post #147
wasfgwp wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did that. But when the AI craze hit turned that all the 8GB base model Macs didn’t have enough space for even basic models (in addition to the 1-2 electron apps you can run simultaneously). Of course seems like local AI is more or less a flop in the consumer market at least? But still IMHO even for general use macos with 8GB is almost unusable unless you use it like an Ipad.

8GB is unusable, but is MacOS and Safari optimizabe? The point is they control the stack so they could reduce memory usage. It would be a big selling point, it could make a Mac "experience for experience" price competitive with PCs.

My Macbook Pro 13" Early 2015 w/ 8 GB RAM and 128 GB SSD is still very usable for what most people commonly use a laptop for - browsing the web, e-mail and streaming.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#182

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

A conspiracy theory I’m entertaining right now is that hogging RAM manufacturing by AI companies is not so much because they _need_ the RAM, but because they want to cripple existing and potential competitors, and that includes on-device models.

One thing that might support this is the fact AI companies are purchasing uncut wafers of DRAM. One use might be to hoard and stockpile them somewhere in a cave, so that no one else gets to them.

Another thing that might support this is that precisely the same strategy had been in use by software companies during the COVID hiring fever. Companies used to hire people for ridiculous pay with little actual work to perform so that among other things, competitors wouldn’t whisk those people away and be at an advantage.

This, of course, ended with massive layoffs once the reckoning came about, and I’m wondering about what is going to happen when (there’s no “if”) the reckoning comes for big AI, too.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#183

Post by Someone »

greybcg wrote: post #163
crakenzak wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, why has there not been a slight paradigm shift in modern system programming languages to expose more control over the caches?

There are cache control instructions already. The reason why it goes no further than prefetch/invalidate hints is probably because exposing a fuller api on the chip level to control the cache would overcomplicate designs, not be backwards compatible/stable api. Treating the cache as ram would also require a controller, which then also needs to receive instructions, or the cpu has to suddenly manage the cache itself.…

Another reason for doing cache algorithms in hardware is that cache access (especially for level 1 caches) has to be low latency to be useful.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#184

Post by Tuna-Fish »

crakenzak wrote: post #155
lou1306 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't explicitly allocate cache, but you can lay things out in memory to minimize cache misses.

Out of curiosity, why has there not been a slight paradigm shift in modern system programming languages to expose more control over the caches?

Because programmers are in general worse at managing them than the basic LRU algorithm.

And because the abstraction is simple and easy enough to understand that when you do need close control, it's easy to achieve by just writing to the abstraction. Careful control of data layout and nontemporal instructions are almost always all you need.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#185

Post by tux3 »

lou1306 wrote: post #129
makapuf wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, you can't explicitly allocate cache like you allocate RAM however. A bit like if you could only work on files and ram was used for cache. Maybe I am mistaken ? (Edit: typo)

You can't explicitly allocate cache, but you can lay things out in memory to minimize cache misses.

A fun fact for the people who like to go on rabbit holes. There is an x86 technique called cache-as-RAM (CAR) that allows you to explicitly allocate a range of memory to be stored directly in cache, avoiding the DRAM entirely.

CAR is often used in early boot before the DRAM is initialized. It works because the x86 disable cache bit actually only decouples the cache from the memory, but the CPU will still use the cache if you primed it with valid cache lines before setting the cache disable bit.

So the technique is to mark a particular range of memory as write-back cacheable, prime the cache with valid cache lines for the entire region, and then set the bit to decouple the cache from memory. Now every access to this memory region is a cache hit that doesn't write back to DRAM.

The one downside is that when CAR is on, any cache you don't allocate as memory is wasted. You could allocate only half the cache as RAM to a particular memory region, but the disable bit is global, so the other half would just sit idle.

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#186

Post by tacticus »

phoronixrly wrote: post #119
Gigachad wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first point highlights the huge unmitigated risk. There is no guarantee that this won't all implode, triggering a huge recession. And even if no one can afford the ram after, they especially won't be able to afford the more expensive European ram. Really the only way it could work is if the government declares it it a national security issue and will promise to subsidize it. Because in just a free market, it's m…

It's been a headscratcher for me... The EU and the US have an issue with CCP-subsidised tech giants, but their sole reaction is banning them in some form or other? In the EU it is from public tenders, in the US it's from dealing with US companies. This does not really help EU and US businesses to be competitive though, neither does it stop consumers going for the cheapest option...

Those US companies that the US government bought part of and funded their expansions with no controls over the cartel...

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#187

Post by kristopolous »

gib444 wrote: post #64
throwaway2037 wrote: post #60

Will this RAM shortage also affect the price of mobile phones?

Given how eagerly companies have used price rises - even unrelated - as an excuse to raise prices disproportionately since 2020 I expect so

They'll jack them up for any excuse and then stay whisper quiet when the excuse no longer holds

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#188

Post by egorfine »

Gigachad wrote: post #57
dijit wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a few things to note here: 1) Prices aren't returning to "normal". The only way they will is if the hyperscalers and AI companies start to implode -- which will kill a huge portion of the US economy and lead to global recession, so, cheap RAM but nobody can afford it 2) By building up capacity you influence the outcome. If someone else enters the DRAM space, the duopoly has to actually start thinking about co…

Your first point highlights the huge unmitigated risk. There is no guarantee that this won't all implode, triggering a huge recession. And even if no one can afford the ram after, they especially won't be able to afford the more expensive European ram. Really the only way it could work is if the government declares it it a national security issue and will promise to subsidize it. Because in just a free market, it's m…

> government [..] will promise to subsidize it

Subsidize what? Copilot prompt in the Run dialog or Notepad? Is this what you think might be considered for subsidizing?

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#189

Post by egorfine »

noosphr wrote: post #94
Gigachad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worry is that these high prices aren't going to last long. And by the time you spend years building the capacity, the prices plummet making your facility uneconomical to run. Ram will always be in some demand, but that doesn't mean it's viable for everyone to start building production.

AI demand isn't going away. It will just move from the data center to the local machine. On device AI is much better for the customer than it being in the cloud. Expecting people to stick with a few dozen gb of hbm is going to be the 'no one needs more than 640kb' of the 2030s.

> AI demand isn't going away.

I'm not sure about that. When was the last time you have used Copilot prompt in Run dialog or Notepad?

Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs

#190

Post by snovv_crash »

chii wrote: post #174
josephg wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the internet boom happened, computers had a tiny fraction of the RAM they have today. Everything worked fine. Programmers had to make efficient programs. But we were fine with that. We just programmed in C and C++ and shipped small binaries, because what choice did we have? Nobody tried to build desktop software in javascript on top of electron. And nobody built web servers in python. If all consumer devices onl…

> But nobody would really care. no, you should say that you personally wouldn't care, but that does not generalize. People do care, just like people prefer eating better food than just bread and milk. And after having had a taste of the good stuff, people do not want to revert - loss aversion is real. So if consumer devices regressed back to only having 1gb of ram, they will feel the loss, and they will complain if n…

Software that uses less RAM isn't necessarily worse, often RAM is wasted purely due to carelessness and because it didn't matter.

Your assertion that a world of lean software won't return is backwards looking; that was all driven by hardware being cheaper than developer effort.

If we now enter a world of AI-enhanced developer effort being cheaper than hardware, perhaps we can have lean efficient software again.

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