331–340 of 355 posts
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It's not just that it's compressed - the OS is also intelligently handling which memory should be on hardware vs. virtual. Effectively a lot of the memory concerns have been offloaded to the OS and the VM where one exists.
Isn't that literally every modern OS, always, unless you tell it to act differently?
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You can't explicitly allocate cache, but you can lay things out in memory to minimize cache misses.
A fun fact for the people who like to go on rabbit holes. There is an x86 technique called cache-as-RAM (CAR) that allows you to explicitly allocate a range of memory to be stored directly in cache, avoiding the DRAM entirely. CAR is often used in early boot before the DRAM is initialized. It works because the x86 disable cache bit actually only decouples the cache from the memory, but the CPU will still use the cach…
If you are on Linux you can 'download' some RAM. Enable zram, configure sysctl variables to make good use of it. Note that it won't help you if your workload makes use of all your RAM at once. If you have a bunch of stuff running in the background it will help a lot. I get 2 to 3 compression factor at all times with zstd. I calculated the utility to be as if I had 20GB extra RAM for what I do.
That’s not particularly unique, Mac OS and Windows have had compressed memory for years. No fiddling with setting needed either.
I think Europe should invest into manufacturing RAM. RAM isn't going anywhere, all of modern compute uses it. This would be an opportunity to create domestic supply of it.
The worry is that these high prices aren't going to last long. And by the time you spend years building the capacity, the prices plummet making your facility uneconomical to run. Ram will always be in some demand, but that doesn't mean it's viable for everyone to start building production.
That being said, AI is not going to go away already. And AI is about as memory hungry as you can get.
Jeez. I'm glad I "splurged" for the 24gb RAM in my macbook air. Should last me a few more years..
The joke is that Apple RAM pricing is now close to market level, they still have margin in there even at market prices, and they are notorious for supply chain management and locking in contracts/prices ahead of time. So doubt Apple will change anything here short term. On the flip side if you're buying a new computer in 2026 - it's going to be even harder to justify not getting a MacBook, the chips are already 2 yea…
This 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! :-))
1. Ram was relatively cheap between 1985 and 1987 hovering around $100-150 for 1MB using 256Kbit chips. Then 1987 anti dumping laws lined up with fabs upgrading to lower yielding new 1Mbit chips and things got crazy. In 1988 256Kbit chips went from $3.5 to $7 in less than a month. Some companies coped better than others. Atari was the first to offer computer shipping with 1MB below $1000 thanks to Tramiels little secret of smuggling ram from Japan and skirting anti dumping restrictions :) Even SUN Microsystems was caught buying that smuggled ram from Tramiel.
2. 4MB $150 January 1992, lowest in went would be $100 in December 1992, and back to $130 in December 1994.
3. September 1999 Jiji earthquake.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Jiji_earthquake#Economic_...
https://www.edn.com/panic-buying-sets-dram-prices-on-wild-ri...
https://www.eetimes.com/dram-prices-rise-sharply-following-t...
128MB DIMM prices: May 1997 $300. July 1998 $150. July 1999 $99. September-December 1999 $300. May 2000 $89.
Then overproduction combined with dot-com boom liquidations started flooding the market and Feb 2001 $59, by Aug 2001 _256MB_ module was $49. Feb 2002 256MB $34. Finally April 2003 hit the absolute bottom with $39 _512MB_ DIMMs
Sadly now is not like any of those times. Its like the Jiji earthquake lasted couple of years straight.
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My canonical example is I bought 12 sticks of 64GB DDR4LRDIMM for 400-430$. Now each stick costs 320$... Just a year ago...
That's insane! I think SSD prices have also skyrocketed but to a lesser extent
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It may seem that these are very similar processes, but this is only if you do not take into account the bribes from Intel to specific officials and their relatives who make decisions about subsidizing Intel. SK Hynix, Samsung, or Micron don't treat good people well enough to give them taxpayer money.
> but this is only if you do not take into account the bribes from Intel to specific officials and their relatives who make decisions about subsidizing Intel. Bribes? Sheesh, HN has gone insane. Brandolini's Law is out of control here. You are making a bold fucking claim. From the tone of your post, it seems pointless to ask if you have any evidence. From and outsider's view, I would say the German political system i…
I highly doubt it. I'm certainly no expert on Germany, but has Germany's bureaucratic machine spent decades destroying its own energy sector to buy energy from Russia, funding the war machine of Putin's totalitarian dictatorship?
And not just by buying these resources, but by OVERPAYING for them many times over. I just opened a chart of the prices at which Germany bought natural gas from Russia before the war with Ukraine, and it's wild, it is several times more expensive than Germany is now paying for gas delivered from the other side of the globe on tiny ships. It was a direct subsidizing of this war.
And then you look at these high-ranking (and not so high-ranking) bureaucrats who made all these decisions... And literally all of their families got richer during the time these decisions were made, by tens (and sometimes hundreds) of millions. There's zero accountability, zero media coverage, and it's all being hushed up to such an extent that I can't think of any other explanation other than EVERYONE was taking the money. We are literally talking about the level of existence of a centralized totalitarian machine for the forceful silencing of anyone who tries to talk about this topic.
So do I say the same about the CHIPS Act in the US? Probably. But the level of corruption seen in Germany – pervasive, bloody, destructive – is simply unimaginable in the US.
I 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?
It's not like most developers are wasting memory for fun by using Electron etc. It's just the simplest way to deploy applications that require frequent multiplatform changes. Until you get Apple to approve native app changes faster and Linux users to agree on framework, app distribution, etc., it's the most optimal way to ship a product and not just a program.
Maybe a bit of engineering and planning could help here. Shipping always half finished products is it usually not a recipe to success.
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RAM isn't a critical security category like 5G base stations. Also, I don't think you've seen true consumer rage until the opposition in the EU would start pointing out the current parties are making the smartphones, laptops, TVs and whatnot consumers wanna buy much more expensive (or more crappy). Large parts of the EU are currently being crushed by one of the worst housing crises in the world, the economy seems to…
Youth unemployment is actually somewhat low in the EU at the moment. It's at around 15%, which is the level as back in 2008 before the great recession.
Plus, even taking a low unemployment numbers at face value, the job quality has fallen a lot, with a lot of people still technically employed but not in great jobs, but in shitty jobs they do for survival, like fast food delivery.
The reality is that mass layoffs and SME bankruptcies are a current occurrence in many EU countries.