With imaginary money
This guy actually Making RAM at Home
Really interesting watch actually. But uh, I don’t think we’re gaming on homemade RAM anytime soon lol
Dodge must be pretty happy.
Why are AI companies buying consumer grade RAM?
They aren’t?
They are buying up capacity from manufacturers who are stopping production of DRAM and pivot to HBM which is more profitable. Abandoning DRAM which affects a lot more than just “consumer grade RAM”
They’re publicly traded companies. Their investor meetings point out that HBM is not more profitable.
It is in theory more guaranteed profit because it’s a smaller number of bigger contracts. But that’s the gamble they’re making.
But isn’t it kind of a game of chicken then for the consumer markets? Whoever gambles the other way, can win in both volume and availability, being able to cut the others off market just by pricing, enabled by the prior two points, get brand points by the ladle while at it, and kind of become a staple of the consumer market. When the bubble pops and others return, the market isn’t the same and everyone else sits at a disadvantage?
Yes.
Which is why it’s bad that the only 3 companies with capacity currently are colluding.
Chinese to the rescue?
Didn’t know people liked shitty trucks that much
You joke but drunk drivers love those trucks.
*didn’t know there were so many drunk drivers
Mustang marketing department doing overtime
My kid wants to build a gaming PC for their birthday.
Am I cooked?
Your bank account certainly will be.
That said, if you buy refurb you can put together a decent rig on a budget.
Recently built a computer for my kiddo. Beg, borrow, and steal. And keep an eye out for motherboard and memory combos from new egg.
SODIMM ram is still cheap. You could build them a ddr4 intel system with integrated graphics (ideally Arc cores or plenty of EUs) that will run some older or simpler games at 40-60fps with a little upscaling, and the whole thing could be done for 500-700 I reckon.
Either that or maybe build an AM4 if you find a used GPU at a good price.
Overcooked at this point
Build one without RAM and without storage.
Don’t worry all orders will be canceled when the bubble pops.
How long was crypto graphics card demand ? Anyone remember ?
GPU prices have gone up and up since RTX 2000 era, basically.
My 3090 is about as expensive than it was at launch, 6 years ago.
There were crypto slumps, many moons ago, but I don’t think that’s happening again.
Anecdotally, according to the internet my ~14 year old graphics card is worth more than 2x what I paid for it. So…
Replace some of the labor you would use to pay for RAM and put it into learning a lighter weight operating system.
Most roundabout “install Linux” I’ve seen yet.
We’re getting cloud computing/gaming in everything from now on, aren’t we?
Ironically, browsers are so fucking bloated these days that any thin client that can run one can also enjoy most of gaming history.
Even in this hardware hellscape you can get some pretty decent handhelds for $200. I think the low end segment can stay pretty strong with devices like those and indie games.
But yeah I think high end gaming is going to be pretty stagnant for at least the next few years.
Indies4TheWindies
GG my fellow PC enthusiasts
No problem. So much enshittification on the web these days, don’t need so much RAM, I might sell some.
but how…? just make more. its not even 2027 yet. ffs. this feels like a scam.
I can’t tell if you’re actually asking or if your question was rhetorical but I’ll go ahead and answer. This is over simplified but this is basically what is being reported:
The RAM companies know how much RAM each of their factories can make in a given hour, day, month, year, etc.
To keep math simple, let’s say the RAM company owns 1 factory. They can make 100 chips in that factory per year. In January 2026, Company A orders 50 chips, Company B orders 50 chips, Company C orders 50 chips, and Company D orders 50 chips. It’ll take 2 years to complete those orders. Maybe each company gets some chips every month for 2 years or maybe it’s first come first serve. Regardless, 2 years. The factories are at max capacity, they physically can’t make them faster.
The only way to make more chips is to build another factory which takes time. But what if you make a lot of money overcharging customers? What if you think AI might be a bubble and demand will go down? Speaking as a company, building a new factory might not be worth the investment.
Oh no, how will I get my flashing lights and data hoarding fix now!!??
