Generative “AI” data centers are gobbling up trillions of dollars in capital, not to mention heating up the planet like a microwave. As a result there’s a capacity crunch on memory production, shooting the prices for RAM sky high, over 100 percent in the last few months alone. Multiple stores are tired of adjusting the prices day to day, and won’t even display them. You find out how much it costs at checkout.
I swear there’s a new gold rush every time I want to upgrade my pc.
It wouldn’t be quite so bad if the previous gold rush ended first, but they seem to just be stacking up.
This AI bubble needs to explode yesterday, Wall Street be damned.
That’s the tariffs, now. GPUs had come down a bit before the dumbass
This is why I’m still running ddr4. Every time I think about upgrading a generation, there’s a run on some integral component.
DDR4 is expensive as shit too now. I was trying to build out a new rack for my homelab and 256GB of ram went from like $300 6 months ago to $1500.
Did I tell you about using arch?
It’s why I started treating computers as commodities — I rarely upgrade anymore; just wait the 5 years and by an entirely new system.
because we’re in an era where there always will be a gold rush for a specific component. upgrades have slowed down considerably in the past 10 years, my laptop is 4 years old and still kicks like the first day, I still game on my 8 year old laptop which is permanently attached to the TV and running as a steam machine with more than decent performance.
this wasn’t even thinkable in the 00’s
I’m pretty sure after hard disks, GPUs, rams the next shortage is either Arm CPUs or a specific future type of PSUs
Same. Got 3080 for $1,500 usd in late 2020
So it’s your fault…
First they came for the hard drives, and I did not speak out because I didn’t need a hard drive. Then they came for the GPUs and I did not speak out because I had a pretty dope GPU. Then they came for my 8gb of ram and there was nobody left to speak out for me.
Lol pricing computer parts like they do fish in an expensive restaurant.
What a time to be alive.
In paris there was this street “rue Montgallet” selling computer stuff like that around y2000, the prices for the most sold things were printed on a cheap paper daily or you had to ask. Guarantee? Yes, but it stops when you leave the shop, or so was the saying.
exactly when i needed some ram.
thank you based ai bubble, for making shit unaffordable because of spambots.
For real. I’ve been building a completely brand new computer for my husband for a couple months now. Buying a new piece each paycheck, then I get paid this week and I discover I can’t buy the RAM… It’s fucking half way finished and the only 2 parts left to buy is GPU and RAM.
Lived in the Silicon Valley in the 1990’s, when the price of RAM exploded with the web, armed robberies of manufacturing plants and warehouses for RAM became a thing for a few years.
Insert <Aw shit, here we go again . meme>
I think the RAM manufacturers were found to be guilty of colluding/price-fixing in that case (maybe this case too).
Ffs I keep delaying a rebuild of my PC because of crap like this every year thinking the bubble will burst, but something new comes up. I don’t use it for gaming nowadays, just regular browsing since I have a console but even Sony is bringing their stuff to PC so I was looking to upgrade. Now it’s been pushed even more.
Hang in there my 8 GB ram PC with GTX 960…
If you have 8gb ddr4 you can probably get a decent deal on a used 8gig stick. Even that would be quite aboost.
If you got good internet you could look into GeForce Now as a stopgap / headstart.
Love Keepa!
Isn’t this the new first party price chart Amazon is testing out?
That’s almost a quarter of minimum wage
This is crazy, not displaying the price of an item in a shelf or display is against consumer laws where I live. And if the price on display is not updated the store is required to sell by the price on display.
It’s blatant price-gouging. Any stock in the store has already been sold to them at an agreed price. They can set a number and make their set margin.
Updating prices after each delivery might make sense (if their procurement department is absolute dogshit at negotiating contracts), but updating prices throughout the day is just someone trying to see how hard they can push their margins to drain every cent out of their customers.
That’s probably one of those toothless laws that can be easily bypassed on a technicality. Like, just say the shelf is for “storage” and not “display”.
Some places try to argue something like that, but if you push back a little they cave. The law estipulates a fine ranging from 74 to 1 000 000 USD for visible products in shelves or display without a visible price tag. And since its a fine, the government is eager to get his piece of the pie.
(Edit for misspelling)
What’s stopping them from throwing a blanket over the shelf and just posting the same notice on the blanket? That’s what I mean by toothless law.
That’s crap. They’ve loaded their stock on a certain price and they want to surf the high wave while they can.
They also need to be able to replenish that stock at current prices. I’ve worked retail many times in my life and arguably kinda-sorta do so now (albeit largely over the Internet) and I’ve never run any store where we did not set our pricing by replacement cost rather than original invoice cost. In my current operation there are some rare exceptions for clearance items and the like, but for the vast majority of products we sell for what it’s going to cost me to get the next one to put back on that shelf, not what it cost me for the one I’m selling you now.
I don’t have any insider insight into other companies’ operations, but I imagine a lot of other retailers work things the same way. Especially these days.
Almost all retailers inventory on consignment. So, no.
No they don’t. They purchase at a fixed rate.
That’s Free Markets, baby!
If you want to see a good set of graphs on pricing over time, PC Parts Picker does some good ones. It’s absolutely INSANE how bad it’s getting. The graphs in question.
Here’s some that’s significantly cheaper than the graph would suggest: https://www.amazon.com/G-SKILL-Trident-64GB-SDRAM-Memory/dp/B0BSB94VC2
Not that it’s a good price in general or anything, but if you absolutely must buy now…
Currently unavailable.
Well that didnt last long at all!
It’s not a fucking lobster. Base pricing per unit based on whatever profit margin you need on that item.
Nope, let’s get as much as we can at all times, like it’s silver bullion.
No, they have to base the price on what it costs to order the next shipment, unless they want to just stop carrying ram or you expect them to take on a loan for that. The wholesale market for ram must be fucking wild for a retail store to think they have to post something like that.
Finally set up my proxmox server, been procrastinating for a year. Thought on a whim, “I’m only using 2 of my 4 slots, and I could benefit from a bit more RAM. It’s DDR4, can’t be that expensive”.
Yeah… It was that expensive. More expensive than when I bought the stuff originally when this computer was new.
As someone buying load of secondhand tech, you don’t need the latest and greatest
I can never get people to understand this. I’ve got servers running on i7 8th gens, with stock 16GB ram. I could upgrade, but no need. People thinking they need 128GB to plays games are delusional.
To run games, you might need at least 32Gb. 64 Gb is sufficient in most cases. Still expensive af
My husband and I have been using computers we built 15 years ago and we decided this year we’ll finally build new computers… Lmao sucks to be us :( already built mine, his is almost done but missing a key component… RAM lmaooooo
Just get the least necessary and hope that prices will drop :(
Yeah but even second hand drives are stupid-priced today. No, I dont want to buy your 2014 1TB drive for 25€ + shipping.
I can’t wait for this to pop, I mean if it does in a way that produces selloffs.
A friend of mine lives in Egypt and that would be a steal
Is it difficult to buy stuff trom Europe in Egypt?
Checking leboncoin (french place where people sell & buy stuff) there are lots of em for 20€ +p&p
But there are also these kinds, for 10€, I almost want to make a RAID6 with a bunch just to see
He said that receiving is the issue. So even if you buy it cheaply here, he might have to pay a huge sum in taxes
Ah yeah gotcha. Like stuff from england, 7€ tax + 16€ “tax handling fee”…
(I know it’s not the point, but a reminder that data center climate impact, including heat, is nowhere near flight, agricultural waste, or construction. Hate it for its own reasons, not for fake ones.)
Hi I can explain the difference. The three other things you listed are necessary for a multitude of reasons. The current boom in data centers is for a solution in search of a problem wasting shit for no gain to humanity as a whole.
Hope that helps :3
Growing inefficient cattle crops in a desert to preserve water rights: not necessary.
Flying Coast to coast for a business meeting that could be an email: not necessary.
Manufacturing those cheap scissors that break after 2 uses: should be a crime (not necessary).
All of these subcases have comparable emissions and externalities to the data centers (at least by my fermi estimates).
It’s easier to bitch about the woes of a thing I already don’t like than to have to make any effort in changing my habits, mmkay?
Yeah, but the average Lemme/Redditor is not going to waste an opportunity to pretend caring, pointing his/her finger and accumulate fake internet points.
Yeah, the main problems right now, seem to be electricity consumption, causing price hikes in surrounding areas.
Which feels to me like terrible policies still. Make big projects pay their costs please!
It’s a bit different in this case.
The responsibility of providing electricity falls onto the nearby power plant, which then also has to increase their production.
But the maker of the new electricity consumer does not need to pay for the capital or anything else really, apart from the electrical rates (and some minimal fixed rates) that they are using.Some governments are coming up with interesting, seemingly effective regulations, though.
Yeah, but the average Lemme/Redditor is not going to waste an opportunity to pretend caring, pointing his/her finger and accumulate fake internet points.
I do feel obligated to at least expose folks to numeracy, even if they won’t listen. Hope it’s not giving them a repeated trauma somehow.
The 64GB kit I purchased Aug 2024 for $195 is now listing for $540
