Kind of funny, with the help of AI finding some historical price sheets and 'design' a computer. So like 70s to 80s and I was blown away, how large the RAM cost was. A huge part of the BOM. It totally change the way I think about computer design in this area and why some decisions were made.
RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs
281–290 of 355 posts
Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs
#282I had my formative years in programming when memory usage was something you still worried about as a programmer. And then memory expanded so much that all kinds of “optimal” patterns for programming just become nearly irrelevant. Will we start to actually consider this in software solutions again as a result?
Android's investing significantly in reducing the memory usage of the next release simply because the BOM cost of RAM for their low-end partners is becoming prohibitive.
But if that new or different because of this event? No it's not, Android has had several initiatives to enable low end devices, from optimizing full fatter Android, to inventing new versions of Android.
Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs
#283This is like in 1993, when I bought a 486-DX2 with mighty(!!! ;-) 4 MB of Ram. MEGAbytes, not GIGAbytes :-D
(Graphiccard memory was back then 256KB or 512KB or 1024KB, amount what we have today as L1 cache on throwaway CPUs)
Raise your hand if you have been there too! :-))
Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt it. I predict in a few years, maybe sooner, one/some of the AI companies buying up the supply will either have achieved their goal or collapsed, and then the market will be flooded with a glut of memory driving prices low again. Or, conversely, the demand stays high for a sustained period of time and the suppliers just increase supply. There's no hard bill of materials/technical reasons for the memory prices…
And in the meantime, major buyers (government, big orgs) adjust by extending the planned lifespan of their computers, and upping the IT wage budget a bit to support that. That adjustment probably won't go away after supply returns.
That's honestly a good thing. Computers aren't really getting faster for end users doing mundane tasks the past couple of years.
Will help reduce E-Waste, and to the end user there won't be a different. A machine from 5 years ago feels just as fast as a brand new machine.
Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs
#285I had my formative years in programming when memory usage was something you still worried about as a programmer. And then memory expanded so much that all kinds of “optimal” patterns for programming just become nearly irrelevant. Will we start to actually consider this in software solutions again as a result?
I doubt it. I predict in a few years, maybe sooner, one/some of the AI companies buying up the supply will either have achieved their goal or collapsed, and then the market will be flooded with a glut of memory driving prices low again. Or, conversely, the demand stays high for a sustained period of time and the suppliers just increase supply. There's no hard bill of materials/technical reasons for the memory prices…
Well, at least then there would be enough RAM to run run Windows7 and Crysis from a RAMdisk, Id guess?
Also RAMsan will have a renaissance then? :-D
Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs
#286I asked ChatGPT directly how it was fair that OpenAI bought 40% of the world’s RAM supply. It denied this saying that the figures quoted were estimates only, that such massive RAM contracts would be easily obtainable public knowledge and that primarily the recent price increases were mostly cyclical in nature. Any truth to this? Edit to add: I am actually curious; I was under the impression that this 40% story going…
x.com/i/grok
Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really new, Nvidia's GTX 1070 launched in 2016 with 8 GB of VRAM and they've been slow walking VRAM increases for the last decade. Today's RTX 5060 has 8 GB for basically the same price that the 1070 did. For $650 you can go up to 12 GB in the 5070, if you want 16 GB it's $1000 for the 5070 Ti, or hundreds more than that for the 5080. I know there's inflation and $380 in 2016 was more money than it is today, but…
1060 6GB here. Figured the headroom would get me a couple extra years out of it. At this rate I’m wondering if the card is going to outlast the concept of owning graphics cards. Partly because, as you mention, maybe NVIDIA will stop selling them. Partly because, maybe APUs will get good enough…
About 3 years ago I got an RX 6750 XT with 12 GB of VRAM for $330 and I expect to be using that until either it dies or my computer's RAM dies and I don't have $10,000 to replace it. If only I'd maxed out all my DDR4 slots when DDR5 was the hot new thing and you could get it for cheap.
Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
And in the meantime, major buyers (government, big orgs) adjust by extending the planned lifespan of their computers, and upping the IT wage budget a bit to support that. That adjustment probably won't go away after supply returns.
That's honestly a good thing. Computers aren't really getting faster for end users doing mundane tasks the past couple of years. Will help reduce E-Waste, and to the end user there won't be a different. A machine from 5 years ago feels just as fast as a brand new machine.
Im always shocked how much good IT equipment is shoved into the trashbin:
At a lot of companies I could make a great deal - either for using it on my own or selling it on Ebay later on.
Big Corporations offen trash IT equipment thats only 3 - 4 years old. And there is no recycling etc. Very sad.
Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs
#289I had my formative years in programming when memory usage was something you still worried about as a programmer. And then memory expanded so much that all kinds of “optimal” patterns for programming just become nearly irrelevant. Will we start to actually consider this in software solutions again as a result?
You're right in terms of fitting your program to memory, so that it can run in the first place. But in performance work, the relative speed of RAM relative to computation has dropped such that it's a common wisdom to treat today's cache as RAM of old (and today's RAM as disk of old, etc). In software performance work it's been all about hitting the cache for a long time. LLMs aren't too amenable to caching though.
Reminds me somehow on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies_of_distributed_compu...
;-)
Re: RAM now represents 35 percent of bill of materials for HP PCs
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren’t Chinese manufacturers already expanding their capacity? Given that Samsung and SK Hynix have left that market in the pursuit of HBM4 chips, China is going to rule this market. At least that’s what analysts are saying.
In this market, CXMT is more likely to also move to HBM production rather than consumer grade RAMs. After all China is also doing an AI push in a competition with the US, and the domestic Chinese companies are "recommended/guided" by the government to help, while consumers are pushed to lower priorities. The situation I'm worrying about is that these PC manufacturers could use this opportunity to push for a more lock…
Soldered RAM has objectively lower latency and better signal integrity. Connectors aren't free, in terms of link/SI budget.
This isn't some conspiracy, it's electrical reality.