Memory Prices Climb 500% In 12 Months (tomshardware.com) 110
RAM prices have exploded over the past year, with some DDR5 kits approaching 500% year-over-year increases and a 128GB kit now selling for $3,399, which is more than 10 times its previous low. Tom's Hardware reports: Things improve as you step down the memory capacities and speed tiers, but not as much as we'd like. You're still looking at $392 for a memory kit that was just $72 last year. To reinforce the point, I pulled the latest average price data from PCPartPicker, comparing where we are today (August 2026) to exactly one year ago. This data is somewhat approximate, but it should be broadly accurate. [...] A standard 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5-5600 kit that would have cost you under $200 last summer is now demanding over $1,100. It is a 5x multiplier on a component that used to be a fairly boring and predictable line item in a PC build budget.
If you plan to just wait it out on an older AM4 or LGA1700 motherboard with DDR4, you'd better hope your memory holds out too, because DDR4 isn't safe from the fallout. With DDR5 entirely out of reach for most builders, the resulting scramble for older platforms running DDR4 memory has created a massive knock-on effect, and as a result, DDR4 kits are up anywhere from 120% to nearly 180% across the board. Nowhere near as bad as DDR5 pricing, but it still stings when a kit that was $105 last year is $281 this year.
This phenomenon is by no means exclusive to the US, either. German tech site ComputerBase have also been tracking this global trend, reporting just this week that average RAM prices in Europe have skyrocketed by 345% compared to September 2025. Their data shows the squeeze is bleeding into other components too, with hard drive and SSD prices both climbing over 125% in that same timeframe. In fact, the situation is so severe that hyperscale buyers have reportedly already locked in almost all of the global DRAM production capacity for 2027, handing over advance deposits to guarantee their supply of precious DRAM, which is now among the highest-value commodities in the world by weight; mainstream DRAM chips are worth over half as much per kilogram as solid gold.
If you plan to just wait it out on an older AM4 or LGA1700 motherboard with DDR4, you'd better hope your memory holds out too, because DDR4 isn't safe from the fallout. With DDR5 entirely out of reach for most builders, the resulting scramble for older platforms running DDR4 memory has created a massive knock-on effect, and as a result, DDR4 kits are up anywhere from 120% to nearly 180% across the board. Nowhere near as bad as DDR5 pricing, but it still stings when a kit that was $105 last year is $281 this year.
This phenomenon is by no means exclusive to the US, either. German tech site ComputerBase have also been tracking this global trend, reporting just this week that average RAM prices in Europe have skyrocketed by 345% compared to September 2025. Their data shows the squeeze is bleeding into other components too, with hard drive and SSD prices both climbing over 125% in that same timeframe. In fact, the situation is so severe that hyperscale buyers have reportedly already locked in almost all of the global DRAM production capacity for 2027, handing over advance deposits to guarantee their supply of precious DRAM, which is now among the highest-value commodities in the world by weight; mainstream DRAM chips are worth over half as much per kilogram as solid gold.
Thanks, AI bubble! (Score:5, Insightful)
AI doesn't use desktop hardware including RAM (Score:5, Insightful)
Those days are over.
Re:AI doesn't use desktop hardware including RAM (Score:5, Insightful)
Micron shut down their Crucial brand because they knew they would simply not be making anymore of those products.
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Error Correcting RAM? (Score:2)
Re:Error Correcting RAM? (Score:5, Informative)
In this case, it's a different kind of memory - High Bandwidth Memory [wikipedia.org], HBM.
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That's the really sad part. No aftermarket for them since they will all be industrial grade parts not even compatible with home systems.
I wonder if anyone will start selling home systems capable of using cast-off data center RAM? It might be worthwhile if there's lots of that sort of RAM floating around for cheap.
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I doubt that any of us here has a motherboard that would even know what to do with HBM RAM, let alone has a CPU that can handle it.
And, the GPU/NPU cards aren't desktop-friendly either... no fan or fan connector and no video out... the whole thing is water-cooled (GPU/NPU, CPU, maybe even HBM) at high liter's per minute (maybe even gallons a minute) so it'd be a good use for that whirlpool pump you found on CraigsList.
And, I highly doubt that they'll just resell the old stuff (if it even worked by the time
More tightly integrated “unified memory&rdqu (Score:2)
More tightly integrated “unified memory”, less slots that allow for upgrades.
Re:More tightly integrated “unified memory&a (Score:2)
That doesn't really make any difference to the RAMpocalypse though - the thing that's hard to get is the RAM chips that go into those tightly integrated packages. Apple is having just as much trouble as everyone else getting RAM.
Re:AI doesn't use desktop hardware including RAM (Score:5, Informative)
People keep assuming the AI funnel is taking all their ram when the sad fact is that memory manufacturers simply stopped making desktop memory to use the raw materials on purpose built chips for data centers.
Not so much the raw materials as the fab space/time, but yes.
We have pretty extensive history of how this goes; there have been a half-dozen DRAM crunches in the last ~40 years. What always happens is that prices explode, manufacturers build out massive new capacity (which takes years, and as fabs have gotten more complex it takes more years), then all the new capacity goes into production at about the same time and RAM prices crater.
And we're definitely seeing the same processes at work this time. Between Samsung, SK Hynix, TSMC and Micron there's almost a trillion dollars of new fab construction going on right now. When all of that comes on line, it's going to provide a massive boost to output... and RAM prices will almost certainly drop precipitously, losing all of the recent gains plus whatever normal decline we'd have expected, plus some more.
When? Probably around 2030. 2029 if we're lucky, though we might see a little softening by 2028. Definitely not this year and almost certainly not next year.
It could happen faster if the AI bubble bursts before then. I wouldn't hold my breath.
Re:AI doesn't use desktop hardware including RAM (Score:5, Interesting)
Chinese manufacturers are ramping up output faster than that.
This isn't the first example of DRAM price collusion either. Happened around 2000 as well, and lawsuits alleging it is happening now have already started.
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Chinese manufacturers are ramping up output faster than that.
This isn't the first example of DRAM price collusion either. Happened around 2000 as well, and lawsuits alleging it is happening now have already started.
It's possible. My prediction is that they're not going to find any evidence of collusion, that all of the DRAM manufacturers simultaneously shifted production to AI chips in response to clear market demand, not because of any agreement.
Yes, there was collusive price fixing 25 years ago, but the companies got slapped pretty hard for it -- not just cash fines but prison sentences for executives. I think that prior experience makes it less likely that they're colluding now, not more likely. Once burned twi
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When the bubble bursts, the contracts will evaporate and the big memory manufacturers will slow down their output. The existing stock of memory will be sold to the likes of Corsair and Kingston who will then harvest the memory chips for consumer products.
I am a bit more optimistic. I think once one of these companies goes IPO it will flop and the money will leave (see SpaceX IPO's plummeting and DeepSeek e
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simply stopped making desktop memory
That's not how RAM works. One RAM packager simply stopped putting it on DIMMs, that's all there is to it. When the bottom drops out of the industry and they are left with having to sell the chips they produced it'll be moments before they pivot back to slapping them on consumer PCBs. Also there's no real hole left in the industry here. Crucial was a single brand among a see of consumer memory providers. As soon chips start flowing again there'll be plenty of choice for desktops. Everyone else didn't "stop m
Re:AI doesn't use desktop hardware including RAM (Score:4, Informative)
A sea of consumer memory providers? You do realize that only three companies make the RAM chips that go into DDR4 and 5 memory modules, right? Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix. And they have scaled back production in favor of HBM for AI servers. Prices are up because the supply is very low now. Hopefully CXMT will get in the game and by 2028 produce enough chips to supply the market demand.
Re:AI doesn't use desktop hardware including RAM (Score:4, Informative)
Again you're talking about the wrong thing. Just like the GP who conflated Crucial with a DRAM manufacturer. Precisely zero memory providers have given up on consumers, just one has stopped, and even then they only stopped their brand. What people are missing is the RAM crunch is currently the result of *future* orders. HBM isn't vastly different from DRAM. It's running from the same production lines, from the same fabs, with very little in the way of change to either. If the bubble pops it will be days to a couple of weeks before production shifts from HBM to DRAM, and all the brands you know and love for consumer RAM will still be there, except for Crucial. No one has given up on consumers, not even technically Micron who will after this blows over make DRAM and probably onsell it to whomever wants to slap their name on it.
The GP postulated some shutdown of the consumer industry which hasn't happened, it's purely a supply issue, and supply issues are the kinds of things that quickly correct when a bubble bursts.
Hopefully CXMT will get in the game and by 2028 produce enough chips to supply the market demand.
CXMT *is* in the game. They are selling RAM at a price premium to Samsung. To "supply the market demand" would imply that CXMT would produce 5x as much memory as the rest of the market to bring prices back down, that's not going to happen. CXMT has already announced they are wholly focused on entering the HBM market.
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The _stock market_ bubble popping won't matter... you'll just not have free-to-use AI anymore. That means the AI on your phone, in your car, in your fridge and toaster, on your TV, in your microwave... will have to be paid for in order for it to work, and it'll be so deeply embedded into everything you use that you'll have no choice but to pay dearly. (impersonating Alex from Technology Connections on YouTube) "Doesn't that sound like a great idea?!"
And, because the AI outfits have trillions to spend, and
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That's not how RAM works. One RAM packager simply stopped putting it on DIMMs, that's all there is to it.
No, that is exactly what happened. The RAM companies were given lots of money to make HBM not desktop/server DDR5. If there is a glut of unsold HBM, it is not likely that HBM can be used in desktops and servers.
Re: AI doesn't use desktop hardware including RAM (Score:2)
That's the case today until someone figures out that they can make motherboards and modules that supports HBM chips.
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Re:AI doesn't use desktop hardware including RAM (Score:4, Interesting)
No, that is exactly what happened. The RAM companies were given lots of money to make HBM not desktop/server DDR5. If there is a glut of unsold HBM, it is not likely that HBM can be used in desktops and servers.
No. You don't seem to be understanding what is driving the market price. Or maybe you're following a confusing thread. If you're on the OP's train of thought, then yes absolutely, the cheap hardware from any AI datacentre collapse cannot be used by consumers.
But the GP was talking about abandoning of the consumer market and pointed to Micron dropping Crucial. That is what I was referring to as being incorrect. That's just one packager not putting RAM on DIMMs. The actual DRAM module price is driven by *FUTURE* orders. When the AI bubble pops, those orders will go unfilled and RAM production will quickly shift from HBM to DRAM (they are technologically very similar, so you're talking days / weeks for production to shift back).
There won't be any unsold HBM, HBMs do not have their own dedicated production facility. There'll be a quick shift back to consumers, and RAM prices will come down and all those brands you know and love (except for Crucial) will be there.
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No. You don't seem to be understanding what is driving the market price. Or maybe you're following a confusing thread. If you're on the OP's train of thought, then yes absolutely, the cheap hardware from any AI datacentre collapse cannot be used by consumers.
You wrote: "That's not how RAM works. One RAM packager simply stopped putting it on DIMMs, that's all there is to it." 1) That is not factually true. The situation is not one RAM packager stopped manufacturing DDR5 DIMM modules; the situation is all 3 RAM chip companies cut back dramatically on making DDR5 chips. 2) The entire topic is about RAM not computer hardware in general.
But the GP was talking about abandoning of the consumer market and pointed to Micron dropping Crucial.
And that is true. Micron announced end the entire Crucial brand which includes memory and SSDs.
. That's just one packager not putting RAM on DIMMs.
The problem here is you treated this
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You wrote: "That's not how RAM works. One RAM packager simply stopped putting it on DIMMs, that's all there is to it." 1) That is not factually true. The situation is not one RAM packager stopped manufacturing DDR5 DIMM modules; the situation is all 3 RAM chip companies cut back dramatically on making DDR5 chips. 2) The entire topic is about RAM not computer hardware in general.
You're being dishonest and talking past my point. No it is 100% factually true that only one RAM packager stopped putting it on DIMMs. Every other one other there is still doing that, but is struggling with supply. RAM modules are still being made, no one has stopped making desktop memory except for the drop of one brand. There's a supply crunch but nothing has actually *stopped*. It's purely a money game and a reduction in supply has driven DRAM costs up to meet HBM. RAM is still rolling off production lin
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You're being dishonest and talking past my point.
There four things that happened.
And you say I'm dishonest by talking about the whole picture while you stay hyper-fixated on only Micron closing down Crucial. Ignoring the other facts shows Y
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Well, it's not purpose built memory - it's HBM (high bandwidth memory), which is a standard thing AMD was heavily pushing for their GPUs.
But the fabs are being redirected from producing standard DDR5 memory to HBM memory because the AI companies are literally throwing money at the RAM companies "take m
Re:AI doesn't use desktop hardware including RAM (Score:4, Interesting)
Once more a western company hands everything over to China. Just read reports today that Chinese company CXMT is preparing to ramp up to make desktop RAM at large scales. Now they won't have anything to sell until 2028. But since the incumbent cartel companies have all but abandoned this segment of the market, by then I suspect CXMT will probably be producing most consumer RAM. And when the AI bubble pops and AI demand goes to normal levels, Micron and SK Hynix are going to be in deep trouble. And we'll have handed one more thing we depend on to China. Tariffs will no doubt fix that.
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I hope they can get significant amounts of DDR5 into the channel by next year. CXMT are reporting in excess of 90% yields on it, which is only slightly below the more established manufacturers.
NAND flash production is ramping up fast too. It's a shame they don't make HDDs.
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I'm not sure what the distinction you're making is.
The memory manufacturers stopped making your desktop memory in order to make RAM for AI data centres.
AI data centres are taking all the RAM.
These are the same statement.
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I'm not sure what the distinction you're making is.
The distinction is the RAM companies switched to manufacturing HBM for AI servers instead of DDR5 for desktops/general servers. The only other platform that uses HBM would be the Top 500 supercomputers. HBM is not physically compatible with DDR5.
These are the same statement.
The point being made is if there is a crash of HBM demand and all of the sudden there is lots of HBM memory, that does not mean consumers nor companies can just use HBM in their MBs.
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Maybe someone will engineer an adapter DIMM card so that HBM (as the AI servers use it) can be clipped onto the adapter and have it function... don't know if it's possible, but maybe it's an avenue to do down.
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Chinese manufacturers are stepping up, but it takes them time to ramp up DDR5 production. Hopefully it happens quickly.
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The companies know how to make money ...
https://www.techpowerup.com/35... [techpowerup.com]
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I imagine AI uses the same factories to make enterprise RAM as formerly made consumer RAM.
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We might see some Chinese companies filling the gap. We can only hope.
Noting that Trump currently has a 20% tariff on all products from China.
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500%>20%, that leaves quite a bit of wiggle room for the Chinese to work on the price.
Re: Thanks, AI bubble! (Score:2)
Only applies to the US market, not the rest of the world.
Re:Thanks, AI bubble! (Score:5, Insightful)
No. The hardware being built for AI is basically using hardware that more closely resembles graphic cards minus the DisplayPort output than anything you can pick apart to insert in your PC. Even the memory modules are completely un-DIMM like.
At best, supply will return to pre-AI levels, but that'll just mean that memory reduces in cost to somewhere between today's absurd prices and Trump's post-tariff prices. The chances of it being reduced to Biden levels is pretty low.
Memory is going to be expensive for the foreseeable future. And all because of what's essentially a con job, an attempt to take over every substantial business in America by making their own employees unable to understand what it is they do, that nobody's prepared to do anything about.
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At best, supply will return to pre-AI levels
No, supply will increase. What you're not considering is that the manufacturers are building fab capacity like crazy right now. When all of that capacity hits (in 3-4 years), prices will crater. We've been through this whole cycle many times.
I remember the first big one, driven by the launch of Windows 95. MS-DOS could use memory above the 640K mark only with significant pain and complexity, but Win95 could address it directly and really liked having an insane amount of RAM... like 16 MB!!. Freakin' h
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> What you're not considering is that the manufacturers are building fab capacity like crazy right now.
Which they'll shutter or repurpose if the demand plummets. You think they're going keep those factories churning out memory chips if prices drop significantly?
At the end of the day they have to make a profit. Making a bunch of memory chips with a profit of $-1 per chip is not making a profit.
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Which they'll shutter or repurpose if the demand plummets. You think they're going keep those factories churning out memory chips if prices drop significantly?
You're right, they'll run the numbers and take whichever path maximizes their net profit -- but shuttering (or even heavily modifying) a facility that they've just invested $$$$ into is unlikely to be found to be their most profitable option. More likely they'll try to sell memory chips at a profit of +$.25 per chip in large volumes, because when you've got is a giant hammer, hammering lots of nails is what you can do best.
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Which they'll shutter or repurpose if the demand plummets. You think they're going keep those factories churning out memory chips if prices drop significantly?
Yes they will churn out memory chips. The manufacture of a fab is an insane sunk cost. It won't be shuttered. But specifically memory fabs are also highly purpose built for a certain type of production, typically that production doesn't vary beyond a storage industry, HBM, DRAM, Flash, etc. Repurposing will be within the capabilities of the facility, and even producing a cheap product at volume is more profitable than writing off an investment.
I don't believe there's enough production capacity being built t
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Re: Thanks, AI bubble! (Score:2)
Win95 could manage fine in 4MB. OS/2 2.0 really needed 16MB, in 1992. There was a RAM shortage, and this was one of the many factors that hampered the market share of OS/2. Source : I ran OS/2 2.0 on a 16 MB PC in 1992. Installed from a stack of 5.25 floppies.
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OS/2 should have taken over the world. It was THAT much better than anything else. I'd love to have seen OS/2 on an Amiga...
Re: Thanks, AI bubble! (Score:2)
I agree with you. I ran it all the way until 2007.
It got a bit lonely.
Re: Thanks, AI bubble! (Score:3)
AmigaOS had a lot of features OS/2 didn't, but they both lacked the same very important feature: security.
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Win95 could manage fine in 4MB
That wasn't my experience, though perhaps it was just my workloads.
OS/2 2.0 really needed 16MB, in 1992
I didn't use OS/2 until Warp, some years later, and only because I went to work for IBM.
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It wasn't ethics and games journalism and blue haired college girls coming for your hobbies it was tech Bros and finance Bros. If we have proper antitrust law enforcement the market could actually work and solve t
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Also monopolies. There are three memory producers.
So not monopolies. Words have meanings. You are describing an oligopoly.
There are tons of companies that make semiconductors that could be entering the market and already there. But they're not going to risk it because the other three ram producers could very quickly ramp up production and run them out of business.
I mean sure, let's never start a business ever because a bigger player can commit and antitrust violation.
Sorry but you're flat out wrong. There's not tonnes of companies that could do this. DRAM and HBM manufacturing (as well as to a lesser extent flash) is not just some random chip that can be churned out by any ol' fab. They are very specific fabs with very specific setups made to produce memory and they very much do require very spe
Re:Thanks, AI bubble! (Score:4, Insightful)
There is cheap hardware now. There are very few realistic userspace loads that require DDR5. Waiting two more seconds won't kill you.
You can just buy a 2023-era laptop. It works fine.
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You can just buy a 2023-era laptop. It works fine.
Prices on those have gone up, too. Markets can be irrational, but they aren't stupid.
Bubble won't pop (Score:1)
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Copilot:
Did memoryâ'chip stocks hedge the 500% RAM price spike?
Yes. The major memory stocks rose hundreds of percent over the same period:
Micron (MU): +718.9% in one year
SanDisk (SNDK): +3,825% in one year
Seagate (STX): +526.8% in one year
Western Digital (WDC): +602.6% in one year
Meanwhile, DDR5 RAM kits rose ~500% yearâ'overâ'year.
So yes: memoryâ'stock returns exceeded or matched the RAM price spike, meaning they would have hedged the cost increase.
Re: Thanks, AI bubble! (Score:2)
If the crash takes your job with it, you're still hosed.
It won't be the modules you expect (Score:2)
AI hardware doesn't use conventional RAM modules.
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I don't think this will happen as it isn't really a bubble, AI works and is improving. But I think it is fast approaching a slow moving wall (available grid capacity). When this happens the market will flood with AI silicon and prices will come down. Grid expansion is glacially slow.
Retiring on Memory... (Score:2)
RAM prices have exploded over the past year, with some DDR5 kits approaching 500% year-over-year increases and a 128GB kit now selling for $3,399, which is more than 10 times its previous low. Tom's Hardware reports:
From commodity, to investment vehicle. Anyone loaded with some DDR5 has retirement income.
Al Bundy Says... (Score:4, Funny)
"Peg, why is there a correlation between how big your ass is, and ram prices?"
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"Peg, why is there a correlation between how big your ass is, and ram prices?"
"Oh, AI!"
Funny how in this font the lower-case "L" and the upper-case"I" are indistinguishable. If your comment was a sly reference to that, then kudos to you!
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Ya know, "AI Bundy" would be an excellent name for a cartoon character...
Or maybe for a Vice President? For Vance, the capitalized versions of "al bundy" and "ai bundy" are both appropriate.
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At the end of the day Al Bundy was a good man who cared about people.
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LOL ..though, AI Bundy would be more like Ted Bundy than Al Bundy.
Btw that "I vs l" issue bugs me too. Like, there are lot of places where Jupiter's moon Io is referred to as Lo. Even AI readers make that error. I've even heard humans call it Lo instead of Io. Sort of a pet peeve of mine.
Quick google:
Here's an astronomy site calling it that: https://gavrt.lewiscenter.org/... [lewiscenter.org] (search for the word "Lo's" or "Lo:" )
Also: https://www.science.org/conten... [science.org] (they call it lo .. lower case Lo).
Clearly not done as a
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Well, we can get ours back by mangling the phrase "Io and Behold"... ;-)
The small drop in demand from going to LED is gone (Score:2)
The small drop in demand from going to LED is gone. Now, we have a massive increase in demand, supposedly solely to AI.
RAM, and other related prices, through the roof.
Happy, yet, tech bros? Not only did your greed jack up the global demand for electricity, now your insatiable thirst for cash and power make it so hardware's that much more expensive.
We abandoned our beloved tungsten, for this?
Storage too (Score:2)
Storage prices are also way up, even for used drives. Now is a bad time for an array approaching capacity.
Luckily enthusiast PCs are mostly toys not tools (Score:1)
Utility computing can go many years without a hardware refresh, and intensive tasks need not be shared where they degrade performance on a main machine.
Gaming is completely discretionary and parts may be bought at leisure if one already owns a usable machine.
I buy multiple business class PC cheap after liquidations push them onto Ebay. Linux frees me from needing Windows, a few applications excepted which can run in VMs on Linux hosts or on a cheap secondary PC I remote into (KVM switches are also an option
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Re: Luckily enthusiast PCs are mostly toys not too (Score:2)
Most prevalent failures are power supply electrolytic capacitors
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Capacitors can often be replaced and board level repair is not beyond small shops and dedicated enthusiasts. I remember the capacitor plague and some motivated enthusiasts recapping their boards. That's not terribly difficult, proof being many enthusiasts and professionals who do board level repairs.
Many vintage PCs including mine work fine. I only demote them to backups when I get bored and feel like a hardware refresh. The retro computing community deliberately run ancient hardware of which millions of co
How is this not madness? (Score:1, Insightful)
This was easily preventable if tariffs didn't exist.
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In what way is a completely global supply and demand related issue in any way related to tariffs?
Re:How is this not madness? (Score:4, Informative)
All the investor money- (Score:2)
Joke's on them ... (Score:3)
If you plan to just wait it out on an older AM4 or LGA1700 motherboard with DDR4, you'd better hope your memory holds out too, because DDR4 isn't safe from the fallout.
Hah! All my systems use DDR3 and DDR2, and I've got a bunch of spare modules in the closet. :-)
My Windows 10 system is a DELL XPS-420 I got from a friend with 8GB DDR2 and my Linux Mint system, which was built from parts, has a ASRock Z77 Extreme3 motherboard from a friend on which I put an Intel Core i7-3770 and 32GB DDR3. Both run great, btw. I have a few other old(er) systems, including a Dell PowerEdge T110 (unused) that has 32GB ECC DDR3 and the AMD motherboard from an HP a6130n with a Athlon 64 X2 (B) 5000+ and 8GB DDR2 that I'm using as my OPNsense router/firewall -- I switched to that when a bad "won't fix" security bulletin was announce for my D-Link DSR-250 as I had the system lying around, so it was cheaper and more flexible than getting something new/dedicated. All my systems have SSDs for the systems files and I've added SATA3 PCI cards to the systems with only SATA2 on the motherboard (except for the OPNsense system). None of them are powerhouses, but they're fine and do what I need them to do pretty well. As a bonus, from a home security standpoint, I don't think anyone would ever want to steal any of them. :-)
DDR3 server still ticking (Score:1)
My home server is an old HP Proliant DL380P that's full of DDR3 memory and 18 LFF SATA drives. Even though it's probably circa 2014 or so, it just keeps on reliably doing what I need. Currently running TrueNAS Scale on it with Plex, NextCloud and a TailScale VPN. (May also spin up a dedicated game server for "Pal World" since our extended family have been playing it a lot lately.)
Every time I think about retiring it for something newer -- it just doesn't add up financially to do it. The crazy memory and m
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Even with a motherboard failure, your memory and storage should work just fine on a new motherboard. In fact, all your components except the CPU should transfer over just fine. Sure, they won't run as fast as brand new DDR5 stuff, but that's okay.
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Same here except my server is a Supermicro of similar vintage.
"Want" and "require" are not the same.
If someone needs a PC to make money then like other business equipment they can spend accordingly.
Yay for seeing the future. (Score:2)
I upgraded both of my home lab Proxmox servers to 128Gb of DDR4 - cost me $390 AUD per 64Gb kit (2 x 32Gb sticks).
Could sell that second hand now for over $1600 AUD... Problem is, then you have nothing to replace it with because everything else is just nuts.
A while back, I upgraded from an AMD 5700XT GPU to a 6700XT and it cost me ~$200 out of pocket... Mostly for the mining craze wanting the 5700XT...
I haven't bought any real major upgrades since - its just too expensive...
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I upgraded both of my home lab Proxmox servers to 128Gb of DDR4 - cost me $390 AUD per 64Gb kit (2 x 32Gb sticks).
Whoops - that's actually $390 AUD per 128Gb! Looked at the invoice properly.... On June 16th 2025, a 64Gb kit was $195 AUD...
nVidia (Score:3)
I hope everyone remembers the role nVidia has played over the last 8+ years in this pricing insanity. From crypto bros to AI hoes. I wish only the worst for that little leather-bound troll of a CEO.
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And do what with that knowledge? Say "Fuck you for what you did, by the way can I get that RTX5080 over there now that it's come down in price a bit?"
One of the problems with NVIDIA is they have an effective monopoly in the high end. AMD relegated itself to little league, and Intel is in the corner sniffing glue.
Feeling like a King with 256GB (Score:2)
DDR4 though....
Re: Feeling like a King with 256GB (Score:2)
I have got more than that. I'm rich ! It's not all in one system, rough.
Where is all that money going? (Score:2)
The profits Samsung and Micron are reporting are obscene. I can't believe the chip fabricators are spending much money on increasing capacity for what they surely see as a temporary increase in demand. They're just waiting for the AI bubble to burst along with everybody else.
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The hardware-manufacturers are definitely waiting, especially as a new fab will take 5-10 years to become fully operational. But there is a good chance Nvidia will not survive the inevitable crash. Not much of value lost to the world if that happens.
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Where is it going? Bonuses and stock options for the suits. Just like the tariff refunds these companies received. I paid that tariff and they sure as hell won't reimburse me.
LLM costs, socialized (Score:2)
I hope everybody is aware they are paying for the LLM hype this way.
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Isn't the real shortage money? If you'd bought memory stocks a year ago, would you have more than enough money to buy the RAM you wanted now?
Copilot:
RAM prices rose 500%
memoryâ'producer stocks rose 500â"3,800%
the equity gains would have offset the consumerâ'side price spike
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I know memory became such a commodity in the past that most manufacturers went out of business.
Not really. DRAM and HBM manufacturing is a speciality that required a lot of investment. Most manufacturers for it bailed back in the 90s long before memory became a commodity. It's just a really complex industry to enter. Look at CXMT, they have only just entered the market this year, they were founded in 2016.
The shortage is due to the lack of supply. The number of suppliers isn't relevant. They are all investing in scale up at the moment. The problem is that the focus is on production of HBM not consume
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I don't see any indication that anyone other than CXMT is scaling up production of the chips destined for consumer DDR5 modules. They obviously would switch back to DRAM if the HBM market drops, but that would take significant time. And maybe even after the bubble pops, HBM would still be much more profitable, so there might not be a huge incentive to get back into the consumer RAM. It's entirely possible the other three will concede the consumer DRAM market to chinese companies willing to make slightly
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A RAM fab takes around 5 years to become operational, but only if ASML delivers the equipment in that time. Hence no RAM manufacturer is investing as the LLM hype will have died down by then. Either by crash and irrelevancy, or by much, much more efficient models. In both cases, the RAM market will be pretty much back to what it was before the hype.