Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months • Hacker News Board

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#581

Post by Mawr » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

nickjj wrote: post #67

datakan wrote: post #28

Earlier 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'm running a 12 year old i5 3.2ghz CPU with 16 GB of memory, an SSD and an AMD RX 480 (8 GB) GPU. Currently using a 100% scaled 4k monitor and a 2nd 1440p monitor. I keep the machine on 24 / 7. It's great for software development along with video + image editing and casual gaming. Everything feels fast and snappy. I will use this until the hardware stops. There's a 0% chance I'd buy hardware at the current prices.

At some point, you'll end up paying more in electricity than you would save by not buying new hardware. The power efficiency gains are real.

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#582

Post by Mawr » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #370

pfdietz wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but nobody needs more RAM except for companies. I'm amazed you could write this in apparent seriousness.

Be so kind then and tell me what a normal citizen would need more than 8GB of RAM for, if it isn't for professional work or a specialized hobby? A Mac with 8GB of RAM is blazingly fast for any task your average person would need for it to do. Which doesn't include gaming, mining crypto, or heavy AI models. Maybe I've missed something? So please tell me exactly what task requires more than 8GB of RAM which is so neces…

Could you explain how you chose the 8GB number? Would you still have used 8GB as the baseline 10 years ago? 20? 30? No? Then at what point would say 16GB will become acceptable?

What reasoning are you using to figure out what exact amount of RAM is acceptable at a given time period?

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#583

Post by mjhay » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 6:52 PM UTC

trollbridge wrote: post #299

pydry wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing will happen with RAM. A glut will come eventually. It might take a year, maybe two.

We can dream. I would do unspeakable things with 512GB of RAM.

I had 512 in my desktop a decade ago

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#584

Post by SV_BubbleTime » Thu, Aug 20, 2026, 8:22 PM UTC

Synaesthesia wrote: post #543

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost everything that is upsetting is you, is being intentionally shoved in front of your face to make you feel mad. You are being played. Your great-grandparents had like a 40% child mortality rate. You’ll be ok that some people around the world are fighting which has been a human constant throughout all of history.

At the same time hundreds of thousands of children die annually from diseases which would cost pennies to treat. From starvation. The world is still a horrible place for many people, and there's no real reason why it has to be that way.

What are you doing to solve it? How much are you donating towards medical supplies?

Oh, right.

Yet… violence has plummeted world wide and there has never been a safer, healthier, more prosperous time in human history.

But, you could understand the hedonic treadmill, read some history books… OR… cry about it into your thousand dollar smartphone.

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#585

Post by hbn » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

kridsdale1 wrote: post #557

hbn wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earlier this year I finally bit the bullet and grabbed myself a 5080 for my gaming PC. I wanted to push things a bit more than my 3060ti allowed, and I figured it probably won't get any cheaper any time soon. The PS5/Xbox Series console generation is supposed to be wrapping up soon even though it barely feels like it got started. I don't sense there's appetite for more powerful consoles anytime soon (I don't believe…

Sony has finalized the PS6 but is going to wait out the market because they know customers won’t spend $800 for it.

I have to assume that's why they're pushing to get rid of physical discs, because they make way more money on digital sales.

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#586

Post by BobbyTables2 » Sat, Aug 22, 2026, 11:34 AM UTC

15155 wrote: post #541

josephg wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That may be true but it did get slower. Yes. Microsoft is scrambling at the moment because the macbook neo only has 8gb of ram and runs great. Windows 11 can't compete on that hardware because it's so bloated. I find it strange given microsoft made windows 3.11, which ran fine on computers with just 4mb of ram. Windows 11 is of course more complex than windows 3.11. But not so much that it should need literally 200…

Windows XP (NT lineage) was easily stripped down to less than 50-100MB of both memory and disk space.

Exactly! Having 256MB RAM used to be quite luxurious back in the day…

Re: Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

#587

Post by BobbyTables2 » Sat, Aug 22, 2026, 11:36 AM UTC

josephg wrote: post #567

15155 wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows XP (NT lineage) was easily stripped down to less than 50-100MB of both memory and disk space.

I wonder if the computing requirements of windows scale exponentially? It looks like it. I suspect if we graphed them, they’d pretty perfectly match the computers that were available. Ie, I think windows is optimised just enough to run on the low end hardware of each generation.

There always was speculation that the “WinIntel” monopoly intentionally did exactly this!