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Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

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Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#391

Post by bigbadfeline »

Aurornis wrote: post #128
neom wrote: post #65

Funny how many dot-com esq things are popping up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal

The big news story this cycle is that OpenAI secured two large contracts with two separate DRAM companies at the same time, carefully timing the deals so that neither DRAM company knew about the deal with other. Had either company known about the true demand from OpenAI they would have charged a lot more, but each only saw about half. In other words, there was no collusion between the DRAM manufacturers. They were bo…

> Supply and demand.

Fake demand - fueled by ponzi debt financed by other debt.

Oh, forgot to mention - fake supply too. China was doubly-excluded from the RAM market by using both equipment export bans and tariffs - ensuring the supply is frozen solid.

I'm pretty sure this isn't a coincidence or due to incompetence.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#392

Post by Dylan16807 »

Nevermark wrote: post #388
Dylan16807 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they could make and sell twice as many chips, it would not cut there margins anywhere near half. So they would be making much more. You really think that? I would expect their margins to drop down to a small percentage if they doubled production. Maybe even less.

Price spikes like we are seeing reflect tremendous pent-up/increased demand. Any price increase reduces purchases by many customers. This tends to keep prices stable. With only small changes in price relative to regular changes in demand. Yet prices have gone way up. Which means that many people and businesses are cancelling, delaying, or scaling back their RAM purchases. And yet new demand is incredibly high. To get…

There's room for making more, but I don't think doubling makes sense from a profit point of view.

Especially because the demand curve that's skyrocketing right now is the RAM that isn't in long-term contracts. Doubling all production would much more than double the RAM available for normal purchases.

> To get prices down, supply would have to grow tremendously. Enough to soak up even more purchases from the very motivated, and to cover all the purchasers that have currently pulled back.

Is "down" here back to normal levels?

But normal levels are like a tenth of the profit margin. They'd make significantly less money doing that.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#393

Post by ASalazarMX »

bigbuppo wrote: post #361
khannn wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sincerely hope that OpenAI goes down in flames with those DRAM contracts are going to the highest bidder then so probably Google or whatever AI competitor. Honestly having problems remembering the other AI companies without googling it. I recall MS, Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Anthropic.

When OpenAI fails, all the AI projects everywhere else will also be killed. Such is the nature of bubbles. With any luck the farm land where the datacenters were built will be sold back to the farmers for half off and they get a free barn out of the deal.

It's more likely that overcapacity is put to work in a plan B, like cheap cloud virtual desktops. Why spend effort on spying and tracking users when their whole desktop computer is in your data center?

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#394

Post by bigbadfeline »

m4rtink wrote: post #279
Maken wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their risks are none. They are not increasing capacity, only selling the available one to the highest bidder. Whenever these AI companies run out of money, these producers can simply resume their regular business.

Not sure about DRAM companies, but many businesses would still go under if they sold their annual production to a company that then goes bankrupt and won't pay anything for the delivered goods.

Everything is prepaid, just like you buy RAM online.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#395

Post by kasabali »

noboostforyou wrote: post #337
blackenedgem wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the cheapest time to buy old tech is always just when the new stuff has come out. That's when suppliers are trying to shift old stock at cheaper margins. You can take a look at the 5800X3D and how it was at its cheapest about 2 years ago when AMD was winding down production and Zen 4 had been launched.

To further your point, a used 5800X3D still goes for ~$300 when you can get a brand new 7800X3D for the same if not slightly cheaper (was on sale at MC for $280). I assume the high cost of DDR5 is pushing more people to not upgrade to AM5 and stay on AM4 for as long as possible. And most people are avoiding Intel chips out of principle after the chip degradation debacle - you can see that based on how much lower Inte…

Main reason for Intel boards being cheap is because they're practically one and done because of Intel's insistence on changing sockets every other generation.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#396

Post by Dylan16807 »

oblio wrote: post #318
immibis wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About fifty teraflops. That's the meaning of intrinsic calor - the device can do what it can do, regardless of market conditions. Today it has the value of fifty teraflops, and tomorrow it still does, unless it breaks. However, intrinsic value cannot be measured in dollars.

And yet we're talking about electronics here, they don't have sentimental value and just because compute capacity is unused there are no guarantees that it will be used, even at a per unit cost approaching €0. I'm sure that farmers during the Great Depression were also consoling themselves with the "intrisinsic caloric value" of their corn.

Demand for GPU power is much more elastic than demand for food calories.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#397

Post by doubled112 »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #192
markbao wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have phones that can handle webpages with 1-5MB JS bundles. Why artificially limit what you can do on the web? Why limit ourselves to 1GB RAM when more resources means tech becomes more useful? Returning to simple webpages is popular idea on HN but it’s like wanting a car with no backup camera and crank windows. If your goal is to have your car be as simple as possible, then sure, but that’s not the case…

Actually a plain car would be great I crank the window up and down 3x faster than the little button And I could adjust my damn seat before electricity is available... sigh

Don’t get me started on automatic rear hatches. They close so slow it drives me crazy.

I can be in the house before it gets there, but I don’t trust. Just let me close it.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#398

Post by oblio »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #396
oblio wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet we're talking about electronics here, they don't have sentimental value and just because compute capacity is unused there are no guarantees that it will be used, even at a per unit cost approaching €0. I'm sure that farmers during the Great Depression were also consoling themselves with the "intrisinsic caloric value" of their corn.

Demand for GPU power is much more elastic than demand for food calories.

Food calories are cheaper to convert into something useful. It's not like GPUs, once bought for peanuts, turn into perpetual motion machines. They need power, cooling, a whole infrastructure built around them.

GPUs would have taken the world by storm already in the roughly 30 years since they've been around.

Even for GenAI it's likely ASICs take over at some point if we really care about performance.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#399

Post by Dylan16807 »

oblio wrote: post #398
Dylan16807 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demand for GPU power is much more elastic than demand for food calories.

Food calories are cheaper to convert into something useful. It's not like GPUs, once bought for peanuts, turn into perpetual motion machines. They need power, cooling, a whole infrastructure built around them. GPUs would have taken the world by storm already in the roughly 30 years since they've been around. Even for GenAI it's likely ASICs take over at some point if we really care about performance.

GPUs have taken the world by storm. There's one in almost every computer, and they make up the bulk of supercomputers!

If you put a 75% discount on these powerful GPUs there will be a long line of non-AI-company purchasers.

Re: Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

#400

Post by immibis »

immibis wrote: post #302
oblio wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> GPUs while currently inflated in price will always find enough value. What is the instrinsic value of one of millions of GPUs, if the world only needs 15-20% of them?

About fifty teraflops. That's the meaning of intrinsic calor - the device can do what it can do, regardless of market conditions. Today it has the value of fifty teraflops, and tomorrow it still does, unless it breaks. However, intrinsic value cannot be measured in dollars.

"calor" was a typo of "value" obviously.
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