I think most of us know about the recent super-price-hike on RAM, right?
I just checked what my 32GB (2x16GB) Corsair Vengeance set cost in July this year (Sweden).
Corsair 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 3600MHz CL18 Vengeance LPX
I paid 1,099 kr which is 99 Euro.
It's no longer in stock so I had to look elsewhere to find a kit for price comparison.
I checked on Corsair's own page:
2,639 kr which is 215 Euro
215 Euro for a kit that cost 99 Euro just ~3.5 months ago. That a 117% increase.
I really hope the AI bubble pops soon. The recent OpenAI deal meant that they're suddenly buying 40% of all RAM silicon. FFS.
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment."
The sneakiest part is that they still raised prices on DDR4 which is obviously not what the AI nitwits are buying. I guess it has to do with production allocation in their fabs. DDR4 is slowly being phased out. Still, the DDR4 they're now selling for 100%+ higher price is what they had in stock already.
Everything is getting more expensive though. We have some serious shrinkflation going on here in Sweden.
The most sold (ever) assorted chocolates box named Aladdin (500 grams) was ~84 SEK in 2023. They shrunk the box to 410 grams and the price is ~160 SEK now. That's just one example; they've done it on many different food products, sometimes very sneakily. Hyper-greed has definitely taken hold of what was once a welfare nation where things were fair and safe.
Well, this doesn't bode well for our RAM. The AI sham keeps fucking up the consumer market.
Quote:
Micron to exit consumer memory business amid global supply shortage
"Dec 3 (Reuters) - Memory chipmaker Micron Technology (MU.O), opens new tab said on Wednesday it will exit its consumer business, as it doubles down on advanced memory chips used in artificial intelligence data centers amid a global supply shortage of the essential semiconductors."
"It will halt the sale of the "Crucial" unit's consumer-branded products at retailers, e-tailers and distributors worldwide, but will continue product shipments through the consumer channel until February 2026, Micron said."
Fuck the price hike, I am done buying new PC anytime soon.
I'm glad I updated last year to a reasonable machine. The way things are going, there isn't going to be that much development on the consumer hardware front in the next years anyway. Meaning rigs will last you longer and longer.
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
- Albert Camus
I just checked out of curiosity, my current set (Corsair Vengeance DDR5) is already up to ~€400 here. As if the insane level of inflation/shrinkflation/derpflation affecting every single item and service wasn't already enough..dammit.
I just checked out of curiosity, my current set (Corsair Vengeance DDR5) is already up to ~€400 here. As if the insane level of inflation/shrinkflation/derpflation affecting every single item and service wasn't already enough..dammit.
400€ feels like an investment ixi!
Micron and Samsung have decided to leave the consumer side ie. Hynix will most likely be alone -> good luck with the pricing.
NVIDIA has decided to provide consumer GPUs without VRAM chips and we can only guess the effect on the pricing once AIBs have to order smaller batches per AIB.
PC gaming will have a hard time if this thing keeps conginuing until 2028 as some rumors say. Currently we better have working hardware otherwise it might take forever to get a replacement parts.
Ryzen 9800X3D CO Per Core ~-28 | Freezer III 360 A-RGB & 3x Phanteks T30 | Strix X670E-F WiFi | MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Ventus OC | Fury Renegade RGB 64GB (2x 32GB) DDR5 6400MHz C32 @ 6000MHz C28 | FURY Renegade G5 4TB PCIe 5.0 | 38GN950-B | S.M.S.L RAW-MDA1 & HiFiMAN Arya Organic | Lancool III Snow White + 4x be quiet! Silent Wings Pro 4 140mm | RM1000x (2021) Gold | G Pro X SUPERLIGHT 2 & POWERPLAY | Win 11 Pro | Logitech MX MECHANICAL
It seems that the PC consumer market is going into a serious decline for the next couple of years with insane price hikes becoming the norm. Even when/if the decline ends and things return to "normal" we're not going to see prices return to sane levels.
We're probably entering a shift into an age of haves and have-nots. A minority with deep pockets will be the "elite" while the rest will be paupers with old out-of-date PC's.
We may think that the vacuum will be filled by other entrepreneurs and suppliers that see the opportunity to make tons of money by taking the market shares that are being left open. Unfortunately the main components are owned by just a few companies as well as means of production. Smaller startups and medium sized electronic businesses can't afford to build new silicon fabs to fill the void.
If this computer dystopia takes place we're going to see the stagnation in game development as well. If the major target for PC games can no longer afford to upgrade to newer and more powerful hardware (GPU's in particular) there's no incentive to push graphical quality further. That in turn kills the incentive for people to buy the more advanced and ultra-expensive graphics cards that will come out.
That will affect the bottom line for all the big PC component manufacturers (nvidia, amd, intel etc). Heck, we may see nvidia leave the GPU consumer market altogether in the future if they don't feel there's a point to put resources into developing and making new GPU's. They could just focus on the professional market.
This also might be one huge step towards the subscription services where masses cannot afford a basic gaming PC for themselves but rather to 'rent' a service in order to play games. It is very annoying and I really hope this doesn't become the reality. Streaming services are good for those not willing to spend much for casual gaming but for us who live and breathe these things it would be a disaster.
Ryzen 9800X3D CO Per Core ~-28 | Freezer III 360 A-RGB & 3x Phanteks T30 | Strix X670E-F WiFi | MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Ventus OC | Fury Renegade RGB 64GB (2x 32GB) DDR5 6400MHz C32 @ 6000MHz C28 | FURY Renegade G5 4TB PCIe 5.0 | 38GN950-B | S.M.S.L RAW-MDA1 & HiFiMAN Arya Organic | Lancool III Snow White + 4x be quiet! Silent Wings Pro 4 140mm | RM1000x (2021) Gold | G Pro X SUPERLIGHT 2 & POWERPLAY | Win 11 Pro | Logitech MX MECHANICAL
Signature/Avatar nuking: none (can be changed in your profile)
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
..perkele!
