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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

#281

Post by tombert »

jmyeet wrote: post #223
throwatdem12311 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My iPhone 11 hanging on for dear life…

I had an iPhone 11. It was a good phone. It started giving up in early 2024. I held on with poor battery life until the new iPhones that year and bought the 16 Plus. I'm glad actually because they're discontinued the Plus models, annoyingly. But I'm glad I don't need to upgrade for the next couple of years. I honestly want to get 4-5 years out of any phone going forward. There's basically no difference between models…

I bought my wife an iPhone 11 Pro Max in 2020, and, knock on wood, outside of replacing the battery it has been going on like a champ.

I've offered to buy her a replacement phone but at this point I think she's kind of curious as to how much life she can get out of it.

I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max; I bought it in 2023 but it was a refurb so I don't actually know how old it actually is. Regardless, it's still going strong, and I am hoping it can last through whatever RAM crunch is going on.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#282

Post by KPGv2 »

michaelt wrote: post #26

> The price increases bring the 16GB Pi 5 up to $299.99. Meanwhile, a refurbished corporate laptop with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD can be yours for $199 [1] I'm sure there will still be people who want the Pi 5 but at these prices, I ain't one of them. [1] https://www.ebay.com/itm/327079631563

Some people don't want trashy looking crap sitting around their family room in order to save $100

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#283

Post by stephen_cagle »

Aurornis wrote: post #73

The extreme DRAM market has had an unexpected side effect of triggering a lot of panic buying. I know several people who delayed PC upgrades for years but then panic bought new systems in this market. The trigger was seeing all of the "It's only going to get worse" and "This is the end of personal computing" headlines. They're already regretting spending so much now that prices have started to tick downward. I keep t…

Last month I "panic bought" a $999 Macbook Mini (32G) so I could run small models, Image Generation, and Voice synthesis on it. I don't think I regret it yet, despite the fact that you can get a 16G for $599, which is honestly a much more efficient price per Gig.

I think it is interesting that, at least thus far, Apple has chosen not to raise the price of their comps despite presumably the price of RAM going up multiples.

Tipping point for me: It will be a pretty kickass media server for at least a decade.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#284

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#285

Post by KPGv2 »

ttul wrote: post #97
JollySharp0 wrote: post #41

There are ups and downs in the prices of components. Often people forget that during COVID prices were high for SBCs because of supply chain issues. Video cards just were not available in the UK and afterwards (every supplier had long lead times) and are still relatively expensive (at least there are now lower priced options). Raspberry Pis you couldn't get hold of and many people (Jeff Included) was using a website…

This time is different. https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/#ram.ddr5.60... The price for a couple of 32GB sticks is now over $1200 after being stable at about $200 for several years until last September. That's not a blip; that's 6-fold hike and there is no sign it is slowing down any time soon.

I am not a hardware guy, so I am asking this in good faith: excluding people with corporate backing, who actually needs DDR5 RAM? Gamers? Why is DDR4 or DDR3 not good enough?

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#286

Post by kube-system »

michaelt wrote: post #174
kube-system wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a truck yeah, but across the ocean, it isn't quite that simple because GPUs and grains are sent in different types of ships (or different modes entirely) that aren't interchangeable.

You're right - perishable goods have to be shipped fast. Your bananas, berries, fresh fish, and not-fron-concentrate juice can't be on some slow-steaming container ship with the furniture, clothes, building materials and vehicles. The GPUs can though.

Rice is a nonperishable grain. Grain ships in neither of those. Grain is shipped in bulk carriers

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#287

Post by dartharva »

andrewstuart2 wrote: post #105
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.

Finally, good efficient code is going to get its moment to shine! Which will totally happen because it's not like 80% of the industry is vibe coding everything, right?

Honestly speaking, it has started to look like AI coders could actually do a better job than 80% of app developers in writing efficient apps just by being set to adhere to best-practice programming conventions by default (notwithstanding their general tendency of trying to be too clever instead of writing clear and straightforward code).

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#288

Post by tombert »

nl wrote: post #239
jmyeet wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an iPhone 11. It was a good phone. It started giving up in early 2024. I held on with poor battery life until the new iPhones that year and bought the 16 Plus. I'm glad actually because they're discontinued the Plus models, annoyingly. But I'm glad I don't need to upgrade for the next couple of years. I honestly want to get 4-5 years out of any phone going forward. There's basically no difference between models…

I had an iPhone 12 and just upgraded to a 17 because I don't see any point waiting - prices will just increase. > It really sucks more because the reason for it--AI--is just so godawful and pointless. Strong disagree. AI is the best thing I've seen in 30 years working in software and expensive RAM for 2 years is a price I think is worth it.

> AI is the best thing I've seen in 30 years working in software and expensive RAM for 2 years is a price I think is worth it.

I think generative AI is pretty neat, but I'm not sure it's worth the RAM increases. I use Claude like everyone else does, and it's cool, but I am a little concerned at how much absolute low-effort crap is being produced with it.

It has made YouTube considerably worse; there was already a lot of low-effort shit flooding it, but now it's almost cartoonish. A lot of the videos that I'm recommended will have thousands of views, and give kind of a facsimile of a video with "effort", only for me to realize about a quarter of the way through a bunch of AI tropes in the writing and/or the visuals. It has made the already-mediocre experience of YouTube actively bad.

I am also not convinced that the prices will go down after two years. We already have big memory vendors completely leaving the consumer market, and we have these AI companies buying literal years worth of entire production lines of RAM chips.

This is something that could be solved by competitors jumping in to fill the niche, but it takes a lot of time to build new factories for this stuff, I think more than two years.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#289

Post by JollySharp0 »

jrflowers wrote: post #269
JollySharp0 wrote: post #251

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. 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 baitin…

> 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.

You are misunderstanding what is being said. I suspect it is deliberate.

It is often said that "Prevention is often better than the cure". Similarly it is often better not to risk spending your money unwisely than to have to go through processes to recover your money. It matters not what the specifics of the situation was (it happened a decade or more ago)

I communicated that quite clearly. So you either didn't understand or you are deliberately misunderstanding what I said.

> 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.

I bet you felt really clever constructing that. However as explained the specifics weren't the point. Avoiding the process entirely for funds recovery is the point.

Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

#290

Post by kube-system »

selectodude wrote: post #199
michaelt wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right - perishable goods have to be shipped fast. Your bananas, berries, fresh fish, and not-fron-concentrate juice can't be on some slow-steaming container ship with the furniture, clothes, building materials and vehicles. The GPUs can though.

And the GPUs are such high margin that they all take an airplane anyway.

That is other “different mode entirely” that exists to go across an ocean :)
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