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DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market
501–510 of 592 posts
Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market
#502I know this is a pipe dream (govt’s of the world working together to benefit their citizens instead of blowing some other country’s citizens up!) but if we aren’t gonna regulate AI collectively to ensure we are developing it responsibly, the least we can do is ensure AI is given bottom billing when it comes to all the resources it’s sucking up. Energy, components, engineers, construction, etc. My preference is respon…
I wish korea or the US could pass a law requiring samsung/sk hynix or micron to allocate a certain amount of their production for consumer use
Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market
#503Is there anything (technically) preventing SBC manufacturers adding SODIMM slots? I was expecting the Milk V Titan to avoid this memory nonsense since it has two unpopulated DDR4 slots, but it has fallen off the radar like several other SBCs.
DDR4 is also crazy expensive right now so this just depends on you having some around from a previous build
If you're willing to check the used market it is more affordable as the spike isn't as severe as used DDR5.
Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market
#504OTOH things which belong on microcontrollers are now being pushed back to microcontrollers for cost reasons, so there is a win to be found there.
Yeah, never understood why I would want an entire OS running just to blink an LED. I was going to make a pro-Arduino comment but I guess my LED example warrants little more than an R/C circuit and a transistor, ha ha. (Anyway, I still remember the thrill of writing assembly for a 68HC11 and getting a pair of hobby servos to respond.)
You jest, but I ended up getting a lot of use out of being able to do this in software for a dimmable LED lamp. Dimming the LED required PWM, and the potentiometer resistance -> PWM frequency map ended up fairly intricate to make the knob "feel right."
Now what I would have loved to have done is come up with some crazy analog circuit to implement an arbitrary transfer function from potentiometer input to LED voltage, but I didn't know how to do this at the time and the dev cycle would be a lot more painful than with software.
Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market
#505In the Dwarkesh podcast with Semi-Analysis's Dylan Patel they forecast the phone market will shrink by 50% this year because of RAM prices: But that’s the high end of the market, which is only a few hundred million phones a year. Apple sells two or three hundred million phones annually. The bulk of the market is mid-range and low-end. It used to be that 1.4 billion smartphones were sold a year. Now we’re at about 1.1…
I would not call any Apple phone even mid-range, and certainly not low-end? This coming from an android user, that recently bought iphones for my daughters. Paying 600$ for not even top-of-the-line phones does not scream low-end to me.
My company-provided work phone is a base model iPhone, I'd definitely put it in a performance class lower than a flagship from any brand. Certainly not low-end, but I think mid-range would be a fair characterization.
Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market
#506In the Dwarkesh podcast with Semi-Analysis's Dylan Patel they forecast the phone market will shrink by 50% this year because of RAM prices: But that’s the high end of the market, which is only a few hundred million phones a year. Apple sells two or three hundred million phones annually. The bulk of the market is mid-range and low-end. It used to be that 1.4 billion smartphones were sold a year. Now we’re at about 1.1…
When it becomes clear that the insanely expensive AI data center orders are not going to be filled, we can expect a huge reversal in the price of RAM and GPUs. There are 241 GW of orders on the pipeline but only a third of that is under construction and of that third, even less is being quickly finished and brought online, It’s estimated that just 3GW came online last year. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-ai-industry…
Don't count on it. There's a lot of money in killing other businesses, or even just keeping prices high. Even if the high prices are an accident, there is always someone looking to take advantage of any situation for profit.
Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market
#507Earlier quoted context omitted.
Considering helium is a finite resource on earth, it should be made illegal to put it in a party balloon.
It’s not illegal to put gas in your car. That is a finite resource too.
There's more of it at least.
The problem is not that it's finite, the problem is that by the time prices rise enough to discourage people from using it frivolously, you might already be dangerously low on it.
Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Helium supply issues are only going to make this worse. I believe helium, although important constitutes a small percent of the cost of semiconductors, so its effect on price will be less severe. It will be more noticeable in other uses of helium though - party balloons could get very expensive etc.
Considering helium is a finite resource on earth, it should be made illegal to put it in a party balloon.
The helium that goes into balloons is mostly a byproduct of industrial grade helium production that would otherwise just go to waste. It's not pure enough for industrial uses.
Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not illegal to put gas in your car. That is a finite resource too.
Is it illegal to pull the ladder up behind you in a flood?
This is a really interesting question. Is it? My intuition would say no since you have no inherent duty to protect or help others. I have no clue though.
Re: DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market
#510The SBC markets been on life support for a long time. Youtubers making videos about them don't seem to grasp that and keep pumping out reviews and projects like its still 2019. The pi specifically has plummeted in popularity and for most use cases they just aren't a cost effective option when second hand micro pcs are dirt cheap and vastly more capable.
PCs don't have GPIO. They're different markets and the desktop replacement never materialized.
Imagine if there were a universal means to attach external devices, perhaps one of these external devices could handle GPIO. You might even call it a "Universal Serial Bus."