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.
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.
I have 128gb of corsair ddr5 in my closet. IM RICH!
Is it sitting on top of a pile of beanie babies?
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.
Someone should tell them about those e-paper price tags…
Another user in the BlueSky thread showed a photo that appears to be a Best Buy case of RAM, showing a 32GB set of two DDR5 DIMMs going for over $400 USD, a 64GB kit for over $900.
If I hit Google Shopping, which indexes a ton of retailer sites, I can find 2x16GB DDR5 DIMMs for far less than that at various retailers that haven’t jacked up prices yet.
https://www.google.com/shopping?udm=28
My first hit for “2x16gb 32gb ddr5” sorted by price is this:
https://pcpartshawaii.com/products/kingston-fury-ddr5-32gb-2x16gb-5200mhz-cl40-ram
Kingston Fury DDR5 32GB (2x16GB) 5600MHz CL40 RAM KF556C40BBK2-32
$100.00
These guys have some:
https://www.barcodediscount.com/catalog/kingston/part-kcp548us8k2-32.htm
Price: $103.06
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.
Lol pricing computer parts like they do fish in an expensive restaurant.
What a time to be alive.
Thing is, this isn’t new in the slightest.
I remember calling around to different PC stores in the 90s and early 00s to find the cheapest RAM and hard drive prices.
Before that, I remember my grandfather, an IBM employee in the 60s-90s calling places looking for best pricing on 64k-128k SIPP memory for an ibm pizzabox 286.
That was the norm before it was so easy to buy online from across the country, local stores set their own prices and a few minutes of calling to find the best deal is like searching on Google for a few minutes to find the best deal… But they weren’t doubling in price in a couple months, that I can recall anyway.
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.
Speak for your self - scored a nice GPU upgrade during the crypto crash, maybe something similar will be achievable after this insanity hits the brakes.
Until the next crisis…
This is why I’m still running ddr4. Every time I think about upgrading a generation, there’s a run on some integral component.
AM4 is gonna last until the 2030s at this rate…
With how good my 5600x still performs, I could very well see it lasting that long. Assuming it doesn’t randomly kill itself after a few years like my previous ryzen 5.
I was silly and got myself a 5950X. But I feel less silly about it now tbh. It’s gonna become my new homelab core whenever I get the chance to do a new gaming build again that’s not a high 4-figure investment.
Totally worth it with how good ryzens have held up performance wise. Unless you’re doing some really CPU heavy stuff or have a beast of a GPU, you probably won’t get bottlenecked by the CPU for at least 5 more years.
Unless you’re using windows in your homelab. I assume you’re not since you have a home lab.
Why wouldn’t it?
In a sane world, the limitations of a CPU socket would be reached, and then newer SKUs would no longer be release and all stock for prospective builders would be second hand.
That’s clearly not the case here. AM4 continues to get new CPU releases and parts are still available new from retail, years after the support officially ending. That’s a good thing for variety and entry level machines, but such dependency means a future CPU could be limited in featureset/performance if it releases on AM4 instead of AM5, which there may be enough demand to force designers to downgrade chips for AM4 compatibility.
I dki so too - just upgraded my X2600 with a shiny X5950, the nicest cpu my aging mainboard can run. with 16 cores and 64 gigs of ram i see a future when i simply replace the entire machine for daily use and make this one a very nice server.
It’s why I started treating computers as commodities — I rarely upgrade anymore; just wait the 5 years and by an entirely new system.
Same except for me it’s 10 years.
This is about my upgrade cadence, except for storage. I ran my Ryzen 1600 until the 7000 series dropped and upgraded mobo+RAM at once for about $600.
I then moved the old parts to another case to use as a low load server only for both the motherboard and CPU die within a few weeks. 🫡
So it’s your fault…
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.
I only use Alaska King RAM.
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
They said “market price”… What market are you shopping at?!
