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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

#281
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like you need 64GB to have "democratized computation". We used to have 64MB and that was plenty. Unfortunately, software got slower more quickly than hardware got quicker.

> Unfortunately, software got slower more quickly than hardware got quicker. Hard disagree. A $600 Mac Mini with 16GB of RAM runs everything insanely faster than even my $5000 company-purchased developer laptops from 10 years ago. And yes, even when I run Slack, Visual Studio Code, Spotify, and a gazillion Chrome tabs. The HN rhetoric about modern computing being slow is getting strangely disconnected from the real w…

You brought up a light computing load that a laptop from like 2005 wouldn't struggle with?

People ran multiple browser windows, a 3D video game, irc (chat application), teamspeak/ventrilo (voice chat) and winamp (music) all at once back in the early 2000s. This is something an 8 year old phone can do these days.

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

#282

In case anyone else wanted to check, PS5 has[1]: > Memory: 16 GB GDDR6 SDRAM So unless the RAM price jumps to 4x the price of a PS5, getting a PS5 is not the most cost efficient way to get to 64 GB of RAM. In comparison, PS3 has been used to build cheap clusters[2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_5 [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster

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

I bought 2x16gb for my home computer at $90 about three months ago. When I checked the price of the exact thing I bought just in the past day, it's now $270. The price increase is across the board whether it's a low end or high end build.

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

#283
post #248

Potentially unpopular take: memory manufacturers have been operating on the margins of profitability for quite a while now. Their products are essentially an indistinguishable commodity. Memory from Samsung or Micron or another manufacturer may have slight differences in overclockability, but that matters little to folks who just want a stable system. Hopefully the shortage leads large purchasers to engage in long-te…

I've just remembered a similar situation in 1993! A Japanese factory that made epoxy resin for chips was destroyed and the price of SIMM chips skyrocketed (due to lack of availability). I remember being very upset that I wasn't going to be able to upgrade to 4MB.

There should be a t-shirt for that ;-) I remember paying insane prices that year.

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

#284
post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm always confused why programmers seem to like this technology given the vast negative consequences it will likely have for us. The upsides on the other hand seem to be the most insignificant things.

> upsides on the other hand seem to be the most insignificant things An abundance of intelligence on Earth with all its spoils: new medicine, energy, materials, technologies and new understandings and breakthroughs - these seem quite significant to me.

There is absolutely no guarantee that those things will happen just because Claude takes your job. Taking your job doesn't require super-intelligence, it doesn't even require human-level intelligence. It requires just enough intelligence to pump out mediocre code that sort of works and being way cheaper to run than your pay.

Super-intelligence is a completely different can of worms. But I'm not optimistic about super-intelligence either. It seems super naive to me to assume that the spoils of super-intelligence will be shared with the people who no longer can bring anything to the table. You aren't worth anything to the super-rich unless you can do something for them which the super-intelligence can't do.

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

#286
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…

Drive prices have already exploded. New hard drives have doubled in price since the beginning of the year. I haven't checked SSD prices, but why would they not be crazy, too?

The AI bubble has also pushed up secondhand prices. I work in ewaste recycling. Two weeks ago, a petabyte's worth of hard drives showed up. After erasing, testing, listing, and selling them, I'll have a very merry Christmas.

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

#287
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…

You thought that abundance would trickle down into the pockets of people that have to work for a living? AI will lead to abundance. For those that own stuff and no longer have to pay for other people to work for them.

> abundance. For those that own stuff and no longer have to pay for other people to work for them.

Why are you saying that? Anybody working for a living (but saving money) can invest in AI stocks or ETFs and partake in that potential abundance. Robinhood accounts are free for all.

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

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still is a rule of thumb, you dont need DDR5 for a gaming computer let alone 64gb. A low end am4 cpu + 16gb of DD4 3600 and a decent gpu will beat a ps5 in performance and cost. I dont understand why the headline made this strange comparison.

The thing is, on a ps5 you just open the game and it runs fine. On a PC you may have the bright idea to open a browser along with the game for walkthroughs/hints. Or Discord to chat with your friends while gaming. Due to javascript bloat, your working set size goes from 16 to 48-64 Gb in a jiffy.

That's still not a fair comparison, because on a console you don't have the option to do any of that.

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

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's intended as a comparison of cost when building a gaming-capable computer vs. a console of somewhat equivalent power. The PS5 has 16GB of RAM. One can buy 16GB of RAM for ~$100 [1]. [1] https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9fgFf7/kingston-fury-beast-...

But that’s not apples to apples, a computer will generally need more ram to compete with a console.

The PS5 also has GDDR6 RAM, compared to the DDR5 in the link.

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

#290

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…

Same does apply to gas contracts. So many a time LNG companies break contracts and pay hefty penalties if the spot rate is high enough.

>So many a time LNG companies break contracts and pay hefty penalties if the spot rate is high enough.

What do you mean "Break contracts"? I thought the conversation was about Futures contracts, you don't break them. You sell your contract or you take/give delivery (or cash settle).

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