Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or it’ll accelerate the push to the cloud even more making the client even thinner.
Memory in the cloud isn't free either.
Easier to monetize though ;)
Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months
501–510 of 587 posts
Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would be a great outcome of this situation. I doubt it will happen though: unlike fuel efficiency rules, there aren’t likely to be external pressures like that on software. Outside developer circles most users likely are unaware of memory usage and often just accept that computers are slow and unreliable sometimes. That’s different from drivers who see their fuel gauge and the corresponding cost of fuel, and are…
The situation may be even more different from fuel. The memory shortage may be just a first of such crisis to come - the shortage of anything related to AI/robotics (from electricity to materials needed to produce robots and for the robots to produce even more robots). I think we have a runaway situation - the more of AI/robots produced, the more is demand for such production. The difference from classic production/m…
This makes me think of Factorio. When you make a breakthrough like getting robots, what do you do with it? Use it to make more robot factories.
But in the real world, haven't we got to see whether all this investment will pay off? What happens if it turns out people actually don't want to pay for this?
Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
Counterpoint: I drove past TSMC in Surprise AZ and I counted at least 18 large construction cranes on that single site.
TSMC in the US is a bit of a special case .... wouldn't surprise me at all if they were virtue signalling to the Trump admin more than anything with what they are doing there.
TSMC US federal plant funding was under Biden not Trump (CHIPS act)
Trump did do the initial deal though, but TSMC had to cough the money up for that
TSMC wouldn’t put tens of billons of dollars in irreversible investment just to virtue signal, the scale is too large
You can’t “undo” a fab
Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months
#504So the 1970s oil crisis caused a shift that included fuel efficiency rules. For like, the whole time I've been a software engineer, memory footprints of a lot of software have crept up, even when they aren't really doing more. The memory situation currently is a mess. But ... is it bad enough to get us to _change_ how we build?
A hard hit on Google Chrome users for sure!
Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months
#505These unintended (or intended?) affects of the AI boom are yet another cause for hate among a key demographic (people who use/buy/build PCs) who might otherwise be pro-AI but because of this are quite anti-AI.
Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or it’ll accelerate the push to the cloud even more making the client even thinner.
Concidently, I asked Claude yesterday whether we have crossed the point that there is more compute and memory in the cloud or in personal computers. It claims fp8 and fp16 has had higher throughput in the cloud since 2023. fp32 and general computing still has more compute than personal computers. And that memory is at the crossover point, but at this point only 10% of memory is going to personal computers, so the nex…
Nobody cares what Claude said. Why not tell us what you think?
Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months
#507I wonder if supply chain constraints currently represent an inherent scepticism of manufacturers that demand will last. It feels to me like a side effect of the self-dealing / incestuous financing that is going on is that manufacturers are not willing to bet on it all materialising and therefore are not scaling up capacity nearly as much as they would if they thought it was certain.
9-Aug-2026: SK Hynix to invest $38 billion building new memory chip plants as demand soars [1] "In the AI era, technological competitiveness alone is not enough and the ability to supply the required volume at the exact moment customers need it is the ultimate competitive advantage," SK Hynix said in a press release. "We reached this investment decision after a thorough review of market demand." [1] https://www.msn.c…
Manufacturer skepticism =/= "welp, guess we won't build more factories then"
Facility buildouts will continue at their own pace, independent of current market demands.
Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months
#508These unintended (or intended?) affects of the AI boom are yet another cause for hate among a key demographic (people who use/buy/build PCs) who might otherwise be pro-AI but because of this are quite anti-AI.
Seconded. The mad dash for everything is screwing up future expansion opportunities, because everyone in the market wants a future slice at any cost.
Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months
#509the memory kit i bought earlier this year has been within ~10% of the price for the past 8 months. do with that as you may. a simple ddr5 stick of 6000 mt/s cl30 if wondering.
ever since i had my own money, gpu or general hardware had some excuse to fleece us. however, with ram the blatant collusion throughout history does not invite confidence.
this looks as dramatic as it does because the recent trend happened right after a major crash in prices. throughout the years, the usual price for an 8gb stick would hover around 50-80 usd (albeit laptop one, might be lower for desktop). ddr5 also started being 50-100% more expensive than the incumbent when it first dropped. it took a better part of a year to be in a similar price bracket as ddr4.
all this to say, this situation sucks but those of us with 64+ gigs, bought during the last crash, are eating good but got used to using much more memory than they really need.
while it is insane to pay a decent cpu price for 16 gigs today, getting a "good enough" computer still makes more economic sense than a max plan from a frontier lab.
Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm saving a ton of money by simply not upgrading. I used to do upgrades every 1-2 years just to keep up on things, pass the old box down to my son or otherwise donate it. Now I intend to keep my current setup for 7+ years. Its 2 years old next month. I may even stay with it longer. I just see no reason to upgrade with things how they are. I considered a Mac Studio a couple months ago. Price was up but might have pul…
I have a 2021 M1 pro and see no reason to upgrade it... ever? I do web & general java work on it and it's plenty fast even using a memory hog like IntelliJ (which is typically disk bound anyway). Claude tells me that a new macbook would feel about 1.8x faster in my CPU-bound cases, which is not common. If memory prices returned to normal and if local inference gets over the hump, I could see upgrading for local AI ag…
I'm in the exact same position. I want to upgrade, but when I interrogate the reason, it's all just empty consumerism. This computer does everything I need.