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Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

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Re: Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

#51

Post by embedding-shape »

threeducks wrote: post #44
embedding-shape wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those graphs specifically for the US? When I change the country in the top right, it doesn't seem like the graphs are changing, and considering they're in USD, I'm assuming it's US-only? Is the same doubling happening world-wide or is this US-specific, I guess is my question? Edit: one data point, I last bought 128GB of RAM in March 2024 for ~€536, similar ones right now costs ~€500, but maybe the time range is t…

536 € seems expensive for March 2024, but either way, the price dropped a lot over the last one and a half years, only to surge in the last two months.

> the price dropped a lot over the last one and a half years, only to surge in the last two months.

Yeah, that was my hunch, that something like that was going on. Thanks for clarifying.

Re: Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

#52

Post by walterbell »

zrm wrote: post #41
embedding-shape wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really the cause of this price increase? I still don't understand if this price surge is specifically for the US ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45812691 ) or if it's worldwide, I'm not sure I notice anything here in Southern Europe, so either that means it's lagging and I should load up RAM today, or this is indeed US-specific. But I don't know what's true.

In the US some of it could be tariffs. Micron is a US company with some US fabs but most of theirs are in other countries and Samsung and Hynix are both South Korea.

U.S. tariffs inadvertently kept prices low, due to stockpiling of memory when prices were cheap, before tariffs took effect. As that inventory is depleted, new supply chain purchases are much more expensive and subject to tariffs.

Re: Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

#53

Post by StillBored »

vondur wrote: post #9
zparky wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, DDR5 prices have nearly doubled in less than 2 months. https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/#ram.ddr5.5200....

I was able to get a bundle deal from Microcenter here in SoCal with the Ryzen 9950x, motherboard and 32GB of RAM for $699. They have since removed the RAM from all the bundles.

While thats a sweet upgrade for people with an older desktop that can support a motherboard swap, its worthwhile to point out the ram is probably insufficient.

RAM usage for a lot of workloads scales with core/thread count, and my general rule of thumb is that 1G/thread is not enough, and 2G/thread will mostly work, and 4G/thread is probably too much, but your disk cache will be happy. Also, the same applies to VMs, so if your hosting a VM and give it 16 threads, you probably want at least 16G for the VM. The 4G/thread then starts to look pretty reasonable.

Just building a lot of opensource projects with `make -j32` your going to be swapping if you only have 1G/thread. This rule then becomes super noticeable when your on a machine with 512G of ram, and 300+ threads, because your builds will OOM.

Re: Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

#54

Post by pcarmichael »

embedding-shape wrote: post #11
zparky wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, DDR5 prices have nearly doubled in less than 2 months. https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/#ram.ddr5.5200....

Are those graphs specifically for the US? When I change the country in the top right, it doesn't seem like the graphs are changing, and considering they're in USD, I'm assuming it's US-only? Is the same doubling happening world-wide or is this US-specific, I guess is my question? Edit: one data point, I last bought 128GB of RAM in March 2024 for ~€536, similar ones right now costs ~€500, but maybe the time range is t…

They are US-specific, yes. Thanks for asking that - I'll look into updating those graphs to show for the appropriate region/country depending on what country you've selected (on the top right of the page).

Re: Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

#55

Post by nostrademons »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #31
654wak654 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best we're getting is probably a stop to the price raises, but no price cuts. Kids will continue to grow up not knowing a $600 flagship GPU or a $1000 gaming PC.

That's exactly how it works. A whole generation is already unaware that you used to be able to buy PC games anonymously, offline, without a rent seeking middleman service.

I think there's always been a rent-seeking middleman service. In the 80s it was retail: you'd go to a physical computer store to buy a game for $50 (note: that's $150 inflation-adjusted, more expensive than most games today), and the retail store, the distributor, and the publisher would all take a cut. In the 2000s it was the developer's ISP, web developer, and credit card payment processor, which were non-trivial in the days before Wix and Stripe.

The shareware/unlock-code economy of the 90s was probably the closest you'd get to cutting out the middlemen, where you could download from some BBS or FTP server without the dev getting involved at all and then send them money to have them email you an unlock code, but it was a lot of manual work on the developer's part, and a lot of trust.

Re: Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

#56

Post by jandrese »

HPsquared wrote: post #8

Has the death of Moore's Law been officially announced yet?

Gordan Moore died two years ago so I'm not sure who would be the official for declaring it dead.

But there have been plenty of articles over the last decade saying that it was done around 2015 or so.

Re: Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

#57

Post by some-guy »

zonkerdonker wrote: post #39
654wak654 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best we're getting is probably a stop to the price raises, but no price cuts. Kids will continue to grow up not knowing a $600 flagship GPU or a $1000 gaming PC.

It really is a damn shame, but before AI, it was cryptomining. Desktop GPU prices have been inflated to nonsense levels for gamers, to the point where console vs. PC isnt even really question anymore.

In some ways though, the increase in visual fidelity has been _marginally_ improved on a per-year basis since the PS4/Xbone era. My GPUs have had much, much longer useful lives than the 90s/early-2000s.

Re: Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

#58

Post by nostrademons »

654wak654 wrote: post #28
Ekaros wrote: post #25

I hope this AI craze will crash soon enough. Maybe then various things normalize in price again. And consumers get cheaper products with less limitations.

Best we're getting is probably a stop to the price raises, but no price cuts. Kids will continue to grow up not knowing a $600 flagship GPU or a $1000 gaming PC.

Depends whether or not there's a big bubble burst that involves bankruptcies and Big Tech massively downscaling their cloud computing divisions. Most likely they'll just end up repurposing the compute and lowering cloud rates to attract new enterprise customers, but if you see outright fire sales from bankruptcies and liquidations, people will be able to pick up computer hardware at fire sale prices.

Re: Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

#59

Post by philipallstar »

nostrademons wrote: post #55
add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly how it works. A whole generation is already unaware that you used to be able to buy PC games anonymously, offline, without a rent seeking middleman service.

I think there's always been a rent-seeking middleman service. In the 80s it was retail: you'd go to a physical computer store to buy a game for $50 (note: that's $150 inflation-adjusted, more expensive than most games today), and the retail store, the distributor, and the publisher would all take a cut. In the 2000s it was the developer's ISP, web developer, and credit card payment processor, which were non-trivial i…

None of this is rent-seeking.

Re: Server DRAM prices surge 50% as AI-induced memory shortage hits hyperscalers

#60

Post by MyOutfitIsVague »

Ekaros wrote: post #43
zonkerdonker wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is a damn shame, but before AI, it was cryptomining. Desktop GPU prices have been inflated to nonsense levels for gamers, to the point where console vs. PC isnt even really question anymore.

And even with increased priced you often still get paltry amount of RAM. All for market segmentation due to AI use cases. Which is bad as requirements have crept up.

Really frustrating for a hobbyist 3D artist. Rendering eats gobs of RAM for complex scenes. I'd really love a mid-level GPU with lots of VRAM for under $500. As is, I'm stuck rendering on CPU at a tenth the speed or making it work with compositing.
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