Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months • Hacker News Board

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#261

Post by greatgib » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:09 PM UTC

Somehow another sign that our world is collapsing.

We have more and more wars, less free trade and international spirit, freedom and privacy is going down the sink, "everything is going down", and now ram is a good example of things that use to be abordable and with price going down, becoming expensive luxury good.

One could say that RAM price is just a special temporary event not related to our down trend but a decade ago major players would not have left a profitable consumer market without new actors coming to fill in.

But now we prefer restricting offer instead of increasing production...

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#262

Post by M95D » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:09 PM UTC

Snoozus wrote: post #121

Maybe it's time we make a simple web page 100KB again? Is there some kind of CDN minification, adblocking and compression service? Maybe even server side rendering of websites? Then a smartphone would work fine with 1GB of RAM and everyone could be happy.

> 1GB of RAM and everyone could be happy

I remember a time when I was surfing the web with 256MB and a 5KB/s modem.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#263

Post by Maken » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:14 PM UTC

gbil wrote: post #227

AndrewDavis wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To those who haven't heard how colossal the size of OpenAIs contracts are. 900,000 wafers monthly. Tom's hardware estimates that is equal to 40% of global dram production capacity. https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/openais-star...

Now thinking of this from the other side, 2 big DRAM producers are taking the risk to dedicate a very big part of their production to AI and if we assume they also have similar deals with other AI companies or big datacenters, what is their risk profile if the AI bubble bursts? Are they viable as companies then ? What is their plan B ?

Their risks are none. They are not increasing capacity, only selling the available one to the highest bidder. Whenever these AI companies run out of money, these producers can simply resume their regular business.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#264

Post by kasabali » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:14 PM UTC

mxfh wrote: post #7

To put this in long term relation. Even current DDR4 3200 DIMM prices are at an all time high. These are 6+ year old chip specs now! I even thought stuff was overpriced four years ago in mid-2021 already, but this is a whole new level. Some sample long term data for those: https://geizhals.eu/?phist=2151624&age=9999

Had CXMT not stop DDR4 manufacturing earlier this year, they'd at least cornered that market.

Unfortunately now they're too late on making the bank with DDR5, too: https://www.reuters.com/commentary/breakingviews/chinas-chip...

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#265

Post by Maken » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:15 PM UTC

amarcheschi wrote: post #231

euroderf wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free GPUs for everyone! Bring a truck!

I honestly can't wait to use used gpus as lego bricks similar to what kids in Weimar republic did with cash

The most likely outcome is kids in third world countries extracting the valuable metals from piles of discarded GPUs.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#266

Post by delfinom » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:17 PM UTC

wnevets wrote: post #9

If these prices don't return back to normal I just don't see how Valves steam machine is less than $1,000 USD.

In before Valve releases a video of their own DRAM manufacturing plant because "they always wanted to have one"

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#267

Post by delfinom » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:20 PM UTC

loeg wrote: post #43

nullify88 wrote: post #24

A possible answer as to why this is happening. https://thememoryguy.com/some-clarity-on-2025s-ddr4-price-su...

Scroll down. The same trend is happening for DDR5 prices. It's AI demand.

More specifically, it's OpenAI quietly contracting away 40% of global DRAM capacity, only to build wafers of memory and shove it in a warehouse.

https://www.mooreslawisdead.com/post/sam-altman-s-dirty-dram...

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#268

Post by dist-epoch » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:23 PM UTC

K0balt wrote: post #253

gbil wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now thinking of this from the other side, 2 big DRAM producers are taking the risk to dedicate a very big part of their production to AI and if we assume they also have similar deals with other AI companies or big datacenters, what is their risk profile if the AI bubble bursts? Are they viable as companies then ? What is their plan B ?

I think the price increases we are seeing are a direct result of the skepticism about AI scale viability. The big dram houses aren’t increasing capacity, due to the risks you mention. So demand from other sources has to be suppressed through being priced out in order to meet those supply promises made to OAI in ignorance of their true scale. This is OAI doing suppliers dirty by making economy distorting moves without…

> The big dram houses aren’t increasing capacity, due to the risks you mention.

Except they are

> SK hynix to boost DRAM production by a huge 8x in 2026, still won't be enough for RAM shortages

> It's also not just SK hynix that is boosting DRAM production capacity, with both Samsung and Micron rapidly increasing their respective DRAM production numbers.

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/109011/sk-hynix-to-boost-dram...

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#269

Post by zorked » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:25 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #167

Aurornis wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big news story this cycle is that OpenAI secured two large contracts with two separate DRAM companies at the same time, carefully timing the deals so that neither DRAM company knew about the deal with other. Had either company known about the true demand from OpenAI they would have charged a lot more, but each only saw about half. In other words, there was no collusion between the DRAM manufacturers. They were bo…

One difference that strikes me with the .com bubble is that I don't remember the .com companies having sustained multi-billions losses / cash burn. They were not profitable but this is quite different. If (or when) the music stops, won't OpenAI go bust immediately? That's quite a counterparty risk those companies are taking.

Dotcom companies were basically stuff like pets.com, not things considered strategic with de-facto government backing.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#270

Post by kasabali » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:26 PM UTC

alecco wrote: post #239

walterbell wrote: post #39

https://www.mooreslawisdead.com/post/sam-altman-s-dirty-dram... On October 1st OpenAI signed two simultaneous deals with Samsung and SK Hynix for 40% of the worlds DRAM supply... the shock wasn’t that OpenAI made a big deal, no, it was that they made two massive deals this big, at the same time, with Samsung and SK Hynix simultaneously! In fact, according to our sources - both companies had no idea how big each other…

That's blogspam. Actual Tom's Hardware article from October 1st: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/openais-star...

That's not blogspam. There's a lot more in the mlid post than the linked news item above. Whether it's commentary or speculation I urge everyone to read and decide for themselves.