If you're placing a big enough order you can get the vender to swap the QLC firmware for TLC.
Buy your RAM (and SSDs) now.
- Thread starter IceStorm
- Start date
The DOA set of DDR4 ECC 4x 32GB that I ordered direct from v-color on September 16: I didn’t have the replacement kit in hand until November 10th.
The price of that kit went from $300 to $640 by the time I had working RAM in hand. This better be all I need for the homelab in the foreseeable future.
Depending on how things collapse/turn over, there might be some interesting parts on the surplus market (eventually). However, unlike STH's experience with prior used enterprise SSDs, I suspect training storage SSDs will be thrashed to hell. Some might be at-lifetime. At least the server RAM shouldn't be too funky?
This is really unfortunate. I was planning to replace my (very) aging 2500k in the next year now that Windows 10 support is on life support. I'm not into rushing to buy at already inflated prices, though.
Heh, no, they are moving to QLC NAND storage over HDDs.
I did, of course, mean a 4070Ti Super. Which is probably obvious by context, but figured I'd point it out after the edit window closed.
I'm at 1440 for the foreseeable, and it's plenty.
I do now have 4x16GB sticks of Crucial "Ballistix" DDR4-3600 sitting idle. I suppose I'll wait for eBay to adjust to the new reality and move one or both of those kits on.
Jay thinks this won't affect video cards because different fab lines make GDDR and DDR
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9xjAGnz10I
What Jay forgot to read was the fine print: OpenAI didn't buy memory per se, they bought raw wafer capacity.
It doesn't matter what fab line is in use, what matters is that 40% of SK Hynix and Samsung wafer capacity was lost, on the same day. The same wafers are used for both. The rest of the AI companies bought virtually all of the rest in a panic.
And, like clockwork, AMD announced price increase of at least 10% to their partners:
https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-radeon-gpus-may-cost-10-more
AMD has no large stockpile of GDDR like nVidia maintains. If you want a Radeon GPU, buy it this week.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9xjAGnz10I
What Jay forgot to read was the fine print: OpenAI didn't buy memory per se, they bought raw wafer capacity.
It doesn't matter what fab line is in use, what matters is that 40% of SK Hynix and Samsung wafer capacity was lost, on the same day. The same wafers are used for both. The rest of the AI companies bought virtually all of the rest in a panic.
And, like clockwork, AMD announced price increase of at least 10% to their partners:
https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-radeon-gpus-may-cost-10-more
AMD has no large stockpile of GDDR like nVidia maintains. If you want a Radeon GPU, buy it this week.
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And everyone is going to reprioritize fab allocations based on foreseeable profits now that half of everything is on 70% allocation or worse. Basically that means hoping to suck up more LLM cash sloshing around and leaving most of us out to dry very much like GPUs were 8 months ago. If you can't get 100% of the parts of a consumer-facing SKU, it can't be sold!
AIBs have also signaled this happening soon enough.
Having managed to get a 9070XT for slightly below RRP a couple of weeks ago, I'm wondering if I should go and buy a few lottery tickets while my luck is running hot!
Sounds like waiting for a 2026 refresh just went out the window. AMD won’t have memory, and nVidia will raise prices just because they can.
FOMO wins again, I just got a 9070 xt. (For anyone who needs further incentive, PayPal buy-now-pay-later is doing 20% cash back on Newegg purchases.)
After I sell my 4070 super I'll get a ~20% performance upgrade for ~$100, not something I usually bother with, but I also get to try to break free of Windows gaming.
For some more anecdata, as I looked through old purchase history I see that I paid $150 for a 2x16gb DDR4 kit in 2020, and $200 in 2021. I remember being grumpy about the pandemic prices back then...
MLID put up a written version of his video:
https://www.mooreslawisdead.com/post/sam-altman-s-dirty-dram-deal
From the article, here's the crux of the problem:
OpenAI was afraid of their competition catching up, so they kneecapped their competitors by buying as much wafer capacity as possible.
https://www.mooreslawisdead.com/post/sam-altman-s-dirty-dram-deal
From the article, here's the crux of the problem:
OpenAI was afraid of their competition catching up, so they kneecapped their competitors by buying as much wafer capacity as possible.
That's what bubbles do, and that's why it's called popping. But as with any self respecting bubble, the timing is impossible to predict.
A few days ago, I saw a related news report about Deutsche Bank. They loaned money to various parties for the construction of AI datacenters; apparently they used their usual contracts for buildings and construction. So Deutsche Bank was thinking that those contracts would run 10 years or 20 years.
Now the bankers have realized that those debtors might not last so many years ... and so the strategists at Deutsche Bank are evaluating options to re-pack those loans into other "finance products" and sell them on. Does anybody still remember that very distant past of 2008? No? Great! - Then we have "Derivatives" to sell!
And that was only the one bank which was caught talking about the matter. It's gonna be interesting times.
Yeah but by now everyone has heard of the AI bubble, the "finance products" probably go to someone who attempts to price in the risk.
As this attracted a bit of attention, I should probably dig up my source (in German).
https://www.heise.de/news/FT-Deutsc...-dem-Risiko-der-KI-Finanzierung-11067245.html
(The refer to a paywalled Financial Times piece.)
Investor, best known for being one of the first (at least the first to find a way to capitalize off of) to recognize the housing bubble pre-2008, making hundreds of millions after the crash on CDO shorts. Been in the news a lot due to his current shorts on AI companies.
I would say he is best known for being portrayed by Christian Bale in a popular movie biased on the Michael Lewis called The Big Short.
Well, if he can correctly pinpoint the timing of the AI bubble bursting, then he definitely knows something about bubbles that no economist has yet modeled and publicized. Interesting!
He also recently apparently liquidated his fund. Strange and again super interesting.
So much for replacing my Xeon E3 1230v2 TrueNAS system with something more modern (aka something that supports more than 32GB of RAM). Maybe next year. 
Derp Derpus
Ars Centurion
I have a large stash of high-end DDR4 (some Samsung B die, all G.Skill modules) I'm never going to use. I'm thinking of putting it up on Ebay. I'm glad I bought my two 96GB DDR5 6800 & 7000 kits when I was able to get them for $200 each (they were used review samples sent to a leading tech site. The manufacturer let the reviewer keep them).
Text version of the GamersNexus video with re-checks on prices since the video released: https://gamersnexus.net/news/ram-wtf
Mostly the same content as this thread, but might be interesting for a read-rather-than-watch/listen.
Mostly the same content as this thread, but might be interesting for a read-rather-than-watch/listen.
Really happy I got myself a new build including 64GB of RAM during the summer. Fuck all this AI bullshit.
I guess a new GPU won't be on the table until the bubble pops though. Or maybe I should start a publically traded company with AI in the name as a get rich quick scheme.
Hmm, how does AI powered windshield wipers sound? Or is that already a thing?
I guess a new GPU won't be on the table until the bubble pops though. Or maybe I should start a publically traded company with AI in the name as a get rich quick scheme.
Hmm, how does AI powered windshield wipers sound? Or is that already a thing?
What do you have right now? (and is there something out there you want?) Because GPUs haven't been swept up by the price increases quite yet, but all vendors have indicated that they will be once the supply chain shakes out.
A 4070Ti so it's not like I can't play games. In fact I might not need (being very liberal with the word "need" there) a new GPU until Witcher 4.
Apparently I got lucky with my timing, I bought the parts for my new AM5 build about a month before the price started going crazy. The 2x16 GB kit I bought has tripled in price since then. Bought it for 1339 SEK, now it sits at about 4000 SEK.
I guess I’ll stick to my 5950X/4090 combo until something croaks. Uses DDR4 ram, and I rarely use my desktop anymore.
Are any builders or big OEMs selling systems with not-too-terrible RAM markups?
I'm looking into speccing a system for a relative, they are into astrophotography and want a system that can process image stacks faster than a mid/high end laptop from a few years ago. That workload will use all the CPU cores, RAM (hah!) and high speed storage you can throw at it. Some software also takes advantage of CUDA acceleration but nothing they're using routinely.
Staying in the consumer hardware space I'd be looking at a5950x 9950x with 64+ GB RAM, at least one very fast PCIE 5 SSD, and a hand-me-down 4070s GPU. Maybe a motherboard with multiple PCIE 5x4 SSD slots or just an expansion card to use the second PCIE 5x16 slot for SSDs.
I haven't searched extensively but it seems like the5800x3d 9800x3d is usually the highest spec CPU in gaming prebuilts, and most systems with a 5950x 9950x are sold as an "(AI) workstation" for 2x the cost of anything sold as a gaming PC.
Maybe if they have the budget they can eat the RAM premium and I can build it as a Christmas present...
I'm looking into speccing a system for a relative, they are into astrophotography and want a system that can process image stacks faster than a mid/high end laptop from a few years ago. That workload will use all the CPU cores, RAM (hah!) and high speed storage you can throw at it. Some software also takes advantage of CUDA acceleration but nothing they're using routinely.
Staying in the consumer hardware space I'd be looking at a
I haven't searched extensively but it seems like the
Maybe if they have the budget they can eat the RAM premium and I can build it as a Christmas present...
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My mistake, meant Ryzen 9xxx throughout, probably got confused because I've also been contemplating upgrade paths for my AM4 system. Previous post edited.
In any case - are system builders or OEMs selling 64+ gb RAM systems at less extortionate prices?
In any case - are system builders or OEMs selling 64+ gb RAM systems at less extortionate prices?
Ah, the $2,614.14 I just spent on another 256GB of not even ECC memory burns a bit.
Nice, stable, way to run an economy with these price swings of 2.5x in weeks on random things.
I suppose that explains the looks I got at "You just pack a few computers with like a TB or two of nice cheap RAM." though.
Nice, stable, way to run an economy with these price swings of 2.5x in weeks on random things.
I suppose that explains the looks I got at "You just pack a few computers with like a TB or two of nice cheap RAM." though.
The cascade through the supply chain hitting embedded, now: https://www.techpowerup.com/343500/raspberry-pi-launches-budget-1-gb-pi-5-raises-other-model-prices
I guess they didn't have enough of a stockpile.
I guess they didn't have enough of a stockpile.