Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI

Post by jononor » Fri, May 08, 2026, 7:20 AM UTC

kev009 wrote: post #139

naoru wrote: post #124

Shortages or not, there's little demand for cool new motherboards and CPUs from the enthusiast corner of the market because hardware platforms themselves are stagnating performance-wise. 13-14gen Intel Cores are still more than enough for your average home gamer, Zen 5 shows only marginal improvement over Zen 4 except for a very narrow range of workloads, getting wider than 128bit memory bus is prohibitively expensiv…

I wanted to build a Threadripper 9965WX and the math worked out until DDR5 prices come in to play. Instead I got a used Lenovo P620 5975WX and still had to buy DDR4 from Shenzhen to get anything remotely affordable. The IPC of the Zen5 is a meaningful uplift especially for single thread but it is out of reach.

Post by distances » Fri, May 08, 2026, 8:14 AM UTC

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #281

jrockway wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of a random aside, but I never realized how obnoxious LEDs were until I got a studio apartment and started sleeping in the same room as my homelab / workstation / networking hardware. Electrical tape saved me, but wow. You sure can produce a lot of light with a milliwatt of electricity :) (And yes, my workstation has a clear case and LED RAM. Yes, I'm an idiot. Whenever Windows applies an update late at night, I…

Is it even possible to buy computers these days that don't look like they're intended to be the lighting system at a rave?

Post by Melatonic » Fri, May 08, 2026, 8:18 AM UTC

trashface wrote: post #206

cryo32 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying whole 2020 era PCs here for around $200 mark. As long as you don't need crazy CPU or GPU grunt, which is most people, they are almost indistinguishable from a new one. Windows 10 LTSC + Firefox + uBlock Origin on an i5-9400 feels faster than my M4 Pro MBP. Probably same or better on Linux.

Windows 10 LTSC isn't a realistic option for most people.

Post by SR2Z » Fri, May 08, 2026, 9:50 AM UTC

zrm wrote: post #257

craftkiller wrote: post #158

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> I already have home sever rack, and would recommend it for other people. I just want to warn people who haven't heard server-grade hardware in-person before: this is only for people who can put a server rack somewhere unpopulated like a garage or basement. Servers will make you think "wow, leafblowers sure are quiet". They are not suitable for apartment dwellers such as myself. When I was setting up my 1U before sh…

The noise problem is pretty easy to mitigate by choosing 2U servers instead of 1U. The latter are forced by the form factor to use smaller, higher speed fans. A bigger issue for enterprise hardware is that it's optimized for performance per watt under load, not idle power consumption. Running a mostly-idle rack server 24/7 can result in a pretty sizable electric bill. This also depends heavily on the model. Some will…

Post by zrm » Fri, May 08, 2026, 10:08 AM UTC

SR2Z wrote: post #337

zrm wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The noise problem is pretty easy to mitigate by choosing 2U servers instead of 1U. The latter are forced by the form factor to use smaller, higher speed fans. A bigger issue for enterprise hardware is that it's optimized for performance per watt under load, not idle power consumption. Running a mostly-idle rack server 24/7 can result in a pretty sizable electric bill. This also depends heavily on the model. Some will…

These days, pretty much the only thing that makes sense is a mini PC. AMD laptop chips generally trade blows with Apple stuff on power efficiency when you thrash them, and you get a surprisingly capable machine for not very much money. It's really not worth it to run old hardware 24/7 unless it's making money. Buying a new machine of equivalent capability is (normally) pretty cheap, and it doesn't take very long for…