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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

#261

Post by bombcar »

Kaliboy wrote: post #181
noosphr wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That’s strange, there aren’t wider market supply chain issues outside of DRAM. GPUs, ram, ssds, hdds, hell even CPUs are starting to climb in price. It's an everything shortage and it's only getting worse. A workstation that two years ago cost $3,000 was $10,000 last month and $10,500 this month. There are parts which aren't available at any price.

Wait what? That's over 300%. Between this revelation and that post recently on HN about the scanned receipts and egg prices, I find myself wondering if we're worrying about the wrong things. We're seeing massive inflation in computing, but because the dollar is holding its value we call it increased prices. But the buying by the big buyers is the thing driving the inflation, its mechanism is scarcity. But it's also l…

At least with veggies you can stick seeds in the ground in the backyard.

My hard drive tree will take years to develop before it bears fruit!

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#262

Post by TechSquidTV »

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.

We stood still on Intel 14nm for YEARS, then a few years of decent progress, and now this. Moore's law is taking a beating.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#263

Post by Grosvenor »

jaggederest wrote: post #238
hombre_fatal wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vibe coding might be a positive here since there's no need to optimize for DX over perf when the clanker is the one reading/writing code.

This is my theory: we're going to see a lot of languages with straightforward and obvious semantics, high guard rails, terrible dx, and great memory allocation and performance behavior out of the box. Assembler or worse, but with extremely strong typing bolted on in a way that no human would ever tolerate, basically, something in that vibe.

So Pascal and Delphi are coming back? I'm actually cool with that.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#264

Post by DoctorOetker »

> memory prices won’t remain at their current very high level indefinitely; the circumstances in which we find ourselves are challenging, but in the future they will abate.

how long does it take to increase manufacturing capacity? how long will the decision be postponed to increase manufacturing capacity? if AI skeptics are right and the bubble bursts, increasing capacity inordinately will prove a big mistake. if AI skeptics are wrong delaying increase of capacity indordinately will prove a big mistake.

In a sense we are forcing DRAM manufacturers to play the judge, jury and executioner:

If they don't increase capacity corresponding with AI boom, the DRAM prices may ultimately cause an AI winter.

If they do increase capacity (lowering per unit costs), the lower DRAM prices may enable AI summer to continue.

This looks like self-fulfilling prophecy scenario.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#265

Post by bee_rider »

JollySharp0 wrote: post #51
zozbot234 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are quick to forget that during COVID prices were high for SBCs because of supply chain issues. inb4 AI has the same supply chain effects as a worldwide pandemic. I guess those AI doomers that talked about it being the end of the world had it right!

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…

I’m just going to try and hang tight as well. But I do wonder if DRAM companies should or should not respond to this pricing situation. The actual AI model training companies buying all the RAM aren’t profitable yet, right? It’s all investment, which can dry up at the drop of a hat.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#266

Post by parl_match »

megous wrote: post #117
parl_match wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You can just as well not run docker.

this is naive

"just as well"? lmao sure i guess i could just manually set up the environment and have differences from what im hoping to use in productio

> 1GiB machine can run a lot of server software,

this is naive

it really depends if you're crapping out some basic web app versus doing something that's actually complicated and has a need for higher performance than synchronous web calls :)

in addition, my mq pays attention to memory pressure and tunes its flow control based on that. so i have a test harness that tests both conditions to ensure that some of my backoff logic works

> if RAM is not wasted on having duplicate OSes on one machine.

this is naive

that's not how docker works...

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#267

Post by FpUser »

andrekandre wrote: post #212
JollySharp0 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> chinese companies are now expanding into DRAM because of the high prices a good sign, but im guessing at some point these companies are gonna be tariffed heavily...

>"a good sign, but im guessing at some point these companies are gonna be tariffed heavily..."

In the US. The rest might do the other way. The US of course will try to do some arm twisting. Hopefully the world can learn to fight back.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#268

Post by JollySharp0 »

josephg wrote: post #249
JollySharp0 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something very wrong now with how companies operate in general. You get beaten down eventually. Late last year. I spent like an hour going through why a PR (and this developer's work) in general wasn't acceptable to my superior. He said to me that he was perfectly fine with someone not understanding basic language features (after 6 months using the langauge). He then merged it. It didn't work (as I had warne…

> There is something very wrong now with how companies operate in general. Some companies. A lot of companies, maybe. But far from all of them. I've done a lot of consulting work, which means I've done short stints at a lot of different places over the years. Some were absolute stinkers - like you describe. But I've also worked with some wonderful people and on some great, high performance teams. I understand that it…

> Some companies. A lot of companies, maybe. But far from all of them.

I honestly think it is most of them.

> Some were absolute stinkers - like you describe. But I've also worked with some wonderful people and on some great, high performance teams.

I've totally given up on it. People don't value your work. I did a piece for a particular company. It worked perfectly. It was thrown away after a year and half because management decided everything should be rewritten in ignoring the fact that what I had written was well documented and worked absolutely fine.

Now I shouldn't really care right? I was paid and all. But it pissed me off. What the point in doing a good job if people just throw your work in the bin?

I am looking at what my options are going forward. I am honestly considering being a car mechanic (I fix my own vehicles) or work outside for the canal trust. Realistically I suspect I might pivot to QA or doing something security related.

> I understand that its not so easy when you're 43 (and maybe, with kids). But you don't need to stay in a job like this. Its not worth getting ground down like this. Its bad for your health. And its horrible for your career in the long run.

I've been looking for over 2 years. I want to move to be closer to my family which are 300 miles away (the other side of the UK). So remote is a must. A large number of positions are hybrid, so not an option.

Outside of that many of the position in the UK are working Defence, Intelligence or Law Enforcement. All of those I have ethical reasons why I won't work for them. Outside of that there is Gambling, Pay day loans, and spooky stuff like tracking people via facial recognition.

> In the words of my favorite poet: The world is made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.

I find this condescending.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#269

Post by jrflowers »

JollySharp0 wrote: post #251
jrflowers wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like these many posts about how you, specifically, chose not to use any of the available systems to get a GPU that rapidly organized and became common globally during lockdown. The line from “I just didn’t feel like doing something once” through to “My predictions for the future about a different problem are obviously true” is clear as day. Can’t see why anyone would disagree

> I like these many posts about how you, specifically, chose not to use any of the available systems to get a GPU that rapidly organized and became common globally during lockdown. You like the other people are was arguing with are pretending that the options were reasonable. They weren't at the time. Many other people I know thought the same. There was no stock for any GPU except for absolute crap on any of the reta…

My favorite part would have to be where you can’t remember the actual, structurally crucial piece of information that your argument rests on and just said that you didn’t feel like getting a GPU off eBay.

>I've had problems with it before (I can't remember specifics as it was a while ago). I'd rather not going through the hassle and/or risk in the first place.

As your evidence that

> Doomers IMO are just click baiting.

Like you admitted that you _do not remember_ why it was entirely unreasonable or impossible and are arguing against people that do possess memory of it being possible and reasonable enough for them at the time. Amazing stuff.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#270

Post by vmg12 »

davemp wrote: post #202
throwaway173738 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are classes of bug that are easy to write in C that are impossible to express in Rust.

let foo = [1, 2, 3]; unsafe { *foo.get_unchecked_mut(4) = 5; } Not sure why Rust evangelists always seem to ignore that unsafe exists.

You can prevent unsafe from being used in a repo with linter rules.
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