this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2025
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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.

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[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

You don't hate AI slop enough...

[–] HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Well if you know of a better way to generate pictures of comically obese bearded men gayly dancing, I'd love to hear it.

[–] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

DMing you my patron

[–] Schlemmy@lemmy.ml 18 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

That's crap. They've loaded their stock on a certain price and they want to surf the high wave while they can.

[–] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 8 points 7 hours ago

Almost all retailers inventory on consignment. So, no.

[–] kieron115@startrek.website 6 points 9 hours ago

I think what we're seeing is the result of their stock depleting actually. AI has been buying up supply for a while, and I don't think the consumer markets are able to compete.

[–] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

hmm I got 2 8bg ddr4 sticks, anyone wanna make an offer?

[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)
[–] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 1 points 42 minutes ago

Dammit monster! Get off my lawn! I ain't giving you no tree-fitty!

[–] baatliwala@lemmy.world 33 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (4 children)

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...

[–] kieron115@startrek.website 9 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

so i switched myself and my parents to arch linux over the past 3-4 months and I can say definitively that those specs are fine for CachyOS (an Arch Linux distro). My mom is using my hand-me-down 970 with its lovely "we charged you for 4gb of vram but actually only 3.5 of it is fast haha sucker" and it runs great paired to an old i7 6700k.

[–] theterrasque@infosec.pub 3 points 9 hours ago

If you got good internet you could look into GeForce Now as a stopgap / headstart.

[–] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 7 points 13 hours ago

If you have 8gb ddr4 you can probably get a decent deal on a used 8gig stick. Even that would be quite aboost.

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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 42 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

exactly when i needed some ram.

thank you based ai bubble, for making shit unaffordable because of spambots.

[–] Xella@lemmy.world 14 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] InputZero@lemmy.world 17 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Unfortunately those are the most expensive parts right now because they both require memory chips. Perhaps consider buying used, might be tough to find DDR5 DIMMs but used GPUs are plentiful.

[–] Xella@lemmy.world 8 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

I'm definitely looking for used parts, especially in my local classifieds. I'm going to jump on the first affordable set of ddr5 ram I can find lol

[–] kilgore_trout@feddit.it 1 points 34 minutes ago

You may have to settle on DDR4 for now

[–] absentbird@lemmy.world 10 points 14 hours ago

It's sweet how much effort you're putting into it. When I was a kid I built my first computer one piece at a time with money I saved from mowing lawns, there's something so satisfying about earning a computer through dozens of shrewd bargains and months of dedicated labor. It's all worth it in the end, you've got this!

[–] kurodriel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 16 hours ago (5 children)

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.

[–] tmyakal@infosec.pub 14 points 14 hours ago

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.

[–] kieron115@startrek.website 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

So with things like fish that can change day to day are they required to just update it every day? that sounds nice.

[–] j_j@muenchen.social 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

@kieron115
Yes, otherwise how would buyers know the price?
@kurodriel

[–] kieron115@startrek.website 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

At restaurants here you would ask the host/waiter the market price before deciding to order.

[–] systemglitch@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

That's a little different.

[–] kieron115@startrek.website 1 points 2 hours ago

But it’s what the article is comparing to when they say “market prices”. This particular store is based out of California.

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[–] Vandals_handle@lemmy.world 35 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

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>

[–] sobchak@programming.dev 11 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I think the RAM manufacturers were found to be guilty of colluding/price-fixing in that case (maybe this case too).

[–] azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Altman secretly secured 40 % of the world's DRAM manufacturing capacity last month. Supposedly Samsung and HK Hynix weren't aware they were both signing up for it.

That alone would be enough to call collusion if it wasn't an obvious play to strangle his competition by literally choking them out of hardware.

https://www.mooreslawisdead.com/post/sam-altman-s-dirty-dram-deal

[–] sobchak@programming.dev 1 points 1 hour ago

OpenAI just bought the raw wafers? WTF.

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[–] BigDiction@lemmy.world 7 points 14 hours ago

The 64GB kit I purchased Aug 2024 for $195 is now listing for $540

[–] U7826391786239@lemmy.zip 25 points 18 hours ago (3 children)
[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 16 points 17 hours ago (4 children)

That's insane. I literally just got that same kit of memory free in a NewEgg bundle just 2 months ago! And the 32GB kits I was looking at were all priced at around $75-125 for 32GB

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[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago

I wonder how long ill be staying on my AM4 motherboard... those updated CPUs for gaming that AMD came out with might be my only option for a long time.

[–] njordomir@lemmy.world 9 points 15 hours ago

I was told I was probably overdoing it putting 96GB in my PC a year or two ago. Be that true, but if this pricing doesn't ease up by the time it becomes a server, my ZFS cache will love it!

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