modern reality where only governments and massive corporations control the hardware, and hardware itself is today’s weaponry, replacing tanks and guns?
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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Is there a shortage or is it just price gouging? We should be using the right terms.
I can go on Newegg right now and see tons of listings for Ram.
And the prices?
Fully gouged.
I’m expecting software development to begin focusing on optimization in about 3 years as businesses begin to complain about feature updates slowing things down on the machines that they are keeping longer than before.
CTOs/CIOs that were holding off on purchasing new hardware because of the upcoming improved CPUs from AMD and Intel lost a horrible gamble.
I'm thinking about making an EU petition on this RAM pricing chaos.
I upgraded all of my devices to 16gb or 32gb of RAM just as all this crap started happening, before prices spiked, and made sure I have enough storage.
Now I'm just praying that all of the hardware holds out for 2-3 years to weather this storm. Please keep on chugging, my 5800X in a B550 mobo.....I literally can't afford to replace you anytime soon.
Same. I'm thinking about replacing the PSU, which is one of the original parts, to ensure the rest of the parts don't fail due to improper power delivery.
At least PSUs haven't yet spiked in price.
Good thing about a PSU is they are simply basic electronics with some copper wire in them
Copper shortage rumored 😭
Gonna have to make a complaint to Ea-nāṣir
This is about driving us nuts into cloud computing. Just as people are forced to upgrade their computers for Windows 11. First the drought then the saving tech bros emerge with their offerings.
You don't need the latest Nvidea GPU to self host your own computing. You don't even need ssds. You arguably don't even need that much RAM. A ten year old Dell work fine. Are you self hosting your own AI? Probably not. So what? AI is not mature enough that it is a necessity.
Are computing prices coming down? Unlikely before the AI bubble pops. I think we have taken for granted that computing will perpetually improve price/performance. This is not sustainable.
old computers eventually break.
Oh look, American tech is just to completely implode all at once, neat.
American? This shit is happening globally. The Korean and Taiwanese companies are more than onboard with this.
So far they are sustaining each other in a giant circle jerk of investments. It is only going to implode when they run out of money, and the problem is they have a mindbogglingly huge amount of money.
Call me cynical, but I believe that companies might be happy keeping the prices high if it means they can shuffle consumers onto computers as a service. Maybe wasted silicon will end up being good for business.
This doesn’t seem long term viable.
they would have to massively expand the amount of compute once the current boom ends, otherwise someone like micron will go back to consumer RAM. Micron and nvidia won't profit long term once the demand for new data centres drops.
I suppose that’s their only pivot once they have all this hardware in their shit ai data centers and they finally realize they have to bail on worthless ai shit.
You would think that RAM manufacturers would ramp up production. Hopefully the fact that they aren't means the bubble is going to burst within a couple of years.
Im sure china will and the tradional manufacturers will cry about losing market share while begging for tarrifs and handouts.
I doubt it will take a couple years. They're burning through so much cash right now that they'll be bankrupt in a couple years and despite sunk cost fallacy they won't let it get that bad. At some point they'll cut their losses and pivot to some other new fad. The small handful of uses that make sense will stick around and a few companies will be in just the right place to make it turn a profit but the vast majority won't. Some will go bankrupt (if we're lucky Meta and/or X will be one of them) and some will just write it off as a failed experiment. Either way just as hard as prices spiked we'll see them cratering before they rebound back to normal. Six months would be highly optimistic, but a year probably isn't out of the question.
Of course all of this might be moot if Shitler manages to start WW3 by attacking Greenland. If that happens RAM prices will be the least of everyone's worries.
Practically all DRAM production is sold out for next year, there isn't going to be any significant new supply into the consumer market in that timeframe. Also, when these massive piles of memory end up sitting in a warehouse because the bubble pops, this stock will never make it to the consumer market, because AI data centres use HBM, which is soldered directly to motherboards in such a way that it's impossible to turn it into modules again. Even if all the DRAM producers start selling to the consumer market jan 1st 2027, the pent up demand will still probably keep prices high.
All that to say, I don't think prices will crater.
Those shenzen mofos can figure out a solution to utilize that ram mark my words
It takes time to build factories, the big three RAM manufacturers apparently think AI is a bubble, although that could just be an excuse for price fixing.
China's cxmt is apparently ramping up production, but they're still relatively small.
China is pushing hard to make their domestic brands the new standard world wide so they're not worried about whether the bubble pops or not. They want to drive prices down even if that means selling at a loss because they know that's what it's going to take to dislodge the entrenched players. For better or worse it's likely a winning strategy because the existing players are more concerned with maximizing their quarterly profits rather than meeting any kind of consumer demand or indeed even selling to consumers at all.
They are ramping up production. But it all goes to AI data centers.
Why can't anyone go against the current and sell to individual customers only?
If I as a customer pay, idk, 10€ per gb of RAM and an AI data center pays 20, do you really think they are going to consider how they are feeding a bubble that in the not-so-long term will burst and fuck them up too?
Nah, mate, they are capitalists, they only care about the money they can make in the extremely short term.
But bulk orders typically cost less
Selling in bulk is convenient for manufacturers too.
Because consumer sales is slow and expensive.
What do you think costs more? Building RAM sticks for individual users who'll pay $200-300 per 8/16 DRAM modules, or building sticks for enterprise customers who in one single order will spend millions of USD? Also latter requires no fancy packaging, marketing, or variations in the product.
Profits.
And if say SK Hynux decides to only sell to consumers, Samsung and the others will sell even more to data enters because there's more cash to be made.
No small ask. New factories, new supply chains, more staff, etc.
I traded a 3080 for $300 off a 5070ti and a week later they stop making them.