6 ms·

The bigger question to my mind is why does 14GB of RAM cost $70? 2GB Pi5 - $50 16GB Pi5 - $120 I can see the uses of having more RAM, but surely it's cheap en

by matt-p 2y ago

The bigger question to my mind is why does 14GB of RAM cost $70? 2GB Pi5 - $50 16GB Pi5 - $120 I can see the uses of having more RAM, but surely it's cheap enough to make 4GB standard, with options for 8/16GB that are sensibly priced - removing one SKU.

bogantech 2y ago
Greed
- matt-p 2y ago
  I guess so. I don't begrudge them money, but I wish they could find a better way to make it than resorting to the old apple business model.
- audunw 2y ago
  Not necessarily. They can have a target margin of X% which is completely reasonable. Then they lower X for the lower RAM options and increase X for the higher RAM options. That way more people can buy your product, as many will be fine with less RAM. And the ones that really need that much RAM will contribute more to the margins needed for R&D and marketing. I can't believe that people are still surprised about this kind of pricing, because it's completely normal pricing strategy in almost every market. If this is greed, then I guess greed is simply wanting to be able to run a viable business, and wanting as many customers as possible to be able to afford your products. It's basic price discrimination, and personally I think it's a good thing. I suspect when you're selling at the quantities that Apple are doing, they'll have to consider the impact their RAM pricing will have on RAM shortages. If they price the highest RAM option much cheaper, everyone will just buy that option, even if they don't need it. At those volumes, that could trigger the need to build new RAM factories, which will drive up RAM prices a lot in the short term, which is rather self-defeating.
- GuB-42 2y ago
  Greed, aka. running a business. They have to make money somehow, it means selling things for more than they pay for. They chose to make higher margins on the 16GB model than on the 8GB or less models, which is not particularly shocking.
ClassyJacket 2y ago
Because Raspberry Pi is trying to IPO
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  They did in June. https://www.londonstockexchange.com/stock/RPI/raspberry-pi-holdings-plc/company-page https://www.londonstockexchange.com/stock/RPI/raspberry-pi-h...
  - veltas 2y ago
    Can someone explain to me why they're even allowed to do this? I thought they were a charity.
    - matt-p 2y ago
      Charity and trading company were/are separate (as practically required, in the UK) A charity can't really trade in the same way a company can. For example a charity can't register for VAT (sales tax). The way it normally works is that a charity exists which takes donations and does charitable stuff, then a seperate company exists which makes money and sells stuff (does trade) and it happens to be run by the same folks, and donate money to the charity (or have some kind of 75% of our profits get donated to charity) promise. That's super trivial to unwind as the charity often has no formal ownership over the trading company, it is really just a beneficiary.
      - matt-p 2y ago
        To be fair to the raspberry pi group, I think they were in a difficult position and the whole thing was getting much, much bigger than they ever had anticipated. On the grapevine, they had more money than they knew how to get rid of in accordance with their very narrow charitable objectives.
      - veltas 2y ago
        The bit that feels dishonest is they share a brand, and publicly present themselves as a charity, and actually it's for personal gain. Sure they dotted their i's, but it seems like the key difference between the RPI foundation and the Captain Tom Foundation[1] is they have better lawyers. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/21/captain-tom-family-personally-benefited-from-charity-they-founded-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/21/captain-tom-...
bluescrn 2y ago
That's not expensive these days. Apple would charge about £200 for 8GB more...
- GlacierFox 2y ago
  It's not expensive because apple severely overcharges for pitiful amounts of ram. What?
  - geerlingguy 2y ago
    Heh don't look at NVIDIA and prices for more VRAM!
gunalx 2y ago
I agree. The 2gb skew is borderline useless in most applications you wouldnt just use a pico these days. (I would even line a 32gb skew but realise that is unreasonable for the current soc)
- matt-p 2y ago
  Yes, and there is cost in maintaining an extra SKU. It would cost about $3 to make the 2GB RPI5 a 4GB PI5, and you might save something close to that by removing a SKU. You then get a bunch of new applications (which need more RAM) for your SBC and your product sells more as it looks better value. On the whole that $3 is now looking like a bargin. I don't think 32GB is needed or sensible, so will disagree there.
  - schappim 2y ago
    If you look at all their accessories, particularly the country-specific customisations for keyboards and power supplies, Raspberry Pi now offers an incredibly large range of SKUs.
  - kruador 2y ago
    Actually $9 more to go from 2GB to 4GB, just for the RAM chip itself. See my reply above. 32GB is impossible at present. No-one makes a 256 gigabit (32x8) chip to fit in the same footprint, so then you have to do a new board design to support multiple chips, which might not be doable in the board's current footprint. Micron do a 192 gigabit (=24GB) chip but it's LPDDR5, rather than LPDDR4x, which I imagine the RPi 5's SoC can't drive.
    - matt-p 2y ago
      No, I can see in 10K volume it's a bit over $3, and RPI will be paying less for sure. Even if we look at farnell for a qty of 50.. https://uk.farnell.com/micron/mt53e512m32d1zw-046-wt-b/dram-512m-x-32bit-25-to-85deg/dp/3954472 https://uk.farnell.com/micron/mt53e512m32d1zw-046-wt-b/dram-... 50 - £9.29 EX VAT https://uk.farnell.com/micron/mt53e1g32d2fw-046-wt-a/dram-1g-x-32bit-25-to-85deg-c/dp/3652197 https://uk.farnell.com/micron/mt53e1g32d2fw-046-wt-a/dram-1g... 50 - £12.04 EX VAT Those are public prices (not even account price) for buying only 50, and there's ~$3 difference even there.
kruador 2y ago
The problem is that to fit on the existing board, you need a single RAM package with the same number and function of pads. Looking at a sample photo of a board, I can see it has a Micron package labelled D8CJN. Looking that up on Micron's FBGA parts decoder, the full product code is MT53E2G32D4DE-046 WT:C which is a 64Gb (64 gigabit, i.e. 8 gigabyte) LPDDR4x RAM at 2133 MHz, in a 200-ball TFBGA package. Looking at Micron's range, they now have a 128Gb (16GB) chip with matching specs, which is the MT53E4G32D8CY-046 WT:C. That chip costs £74.66 per chip from Mouser Electronics (just one site I found selling it) in quantities of 1,360. In contrast the 2GB chip - which I surmise is a MT53E512M32D1ZW-046 - costs £9.26 each in quantities of 250. There's a price break listed for 2,720 of the things, but I'm not going to ask for a quote. So that's £65.40 more for the larger RAM chip. Which is about $80 on today's mid-market exchange rates. Looking at the 4GB it's probably a MT53E1G32D2FW-046, which is £16.72 in bulk quantities of 1,360 from the same wholesaler (for the revision C part). So that's an extra £7.46 or about $9. Why are other systems' RAM upgrades cheaper? Largely because they use more chips, and therefore each chip has less capacity. That means either the chip is less dense, or it's a smaller die, so fewer defects are likely within the one chip, making yields higher. An SO-DIMM might have two or four chips on it, depending on whether it's populated on one side or both; a full-size DIMM might be 8 or 16 (or 9 or 18 if it has ECC). Obviously I've made the assumption that this is just a drop-in replacement chip on the existing board. But I assume it would be very hard to redesign the board to fit in the same form factor, with all connectors in the same positions, but add on another RAM chip. If the SoC even supports driving more than one RAM chip, which it may not. TL;DR that's what Micron charge for the larger chip.
- matt-p 2y ago
  There's no way that's what RPI are paying, or even close - it should be somewhere around $7 or so for a 4GB part, $3.60-4 for a 2GB part. If we use your prices above just as a "scale" then you can already see here that 1X 4GB part is cheaper per GB than 2GB, so as I say it's around $3 in cost to upgrade the base model from 2>4GB.
rldjbpin 2y ago
funny how nobody (even the OP) commented on the apple-like nature of the pricing here. especially when it reminds of the recent m4 mac mini memory upgrade costing more than the base model. (EDIT: yes i get that for the mac mini the ram is getting doubled, but here the memory increase is also similar in amount). i recognize the new memory chip SKU that made it possible, but you need a lot of mental gymnastics before justifying the compromise.

by matt-p 2y ago

bogantech 2y ago

Greed

matt-p 2y ago
I guess so. I don't begrudge them money, but I wish they could find a better way to make it than resorting to the old apple business model.
audunw 2y ago
Not necessarily. They can have a target margin of X% which is completely reasonable. Then they lower X for the lower RAM options and increase X for the higher RAM options. That way more people can buy your product, as many will be fine with less RAM. And the ones that really need that much RAM will contribute more to the margins needed for R&D and marketing. I can't believe that people are still surprised about this kind of pricing, because it's completely normal pricing strategy in almost every market. If this is greed, then I guess greed is simply wanting to be able to run a viable business, and wanting as many customers as possible to be able to afford your products. It's basic price discrimination, and personally I think it's a good thing. I suspect when you're selling at the quantities that Apple are doing, they'll have to consider the impact their RAM pricing will have on RAM shortages. If they price the highest RAM option much cheaper, everyone will just buy that option, even if they don't need it. At those volumes, that could trigger the need to build new RAM factories, which will drive up RAM prices a lot in the short term, which is rather self-defeating.
GuB-42 2y ago
Greed, aka. running a business. They have to make money somehow, it means selling things for more than they pay for. They chose to make higher margins on the 16GB model than on the 8GB or less models, which is not particularly shocking.

ClassyJacket 2y ago

Because Raspberry Pi is trying to IPO

mytailorisrich 2y ago
They did in June. https://www.londonstockexchange.com/stock/RPI/raspberry-pi-holdings-plc/company-page https://www.londonstockexchange.com/stock/RPI/raspberry-pi-h...
- veltas 2y ago
  Can someone explain to me why they're even allowed to do this? I thought they were a charity.
  - matt-p 2y ago
    Charity and trading company were/are separate (as practically required, in the UK) A charity can't really trade in the same way a company can. For example a charity can't register for VAT (sales tax). The way it normally works is that a charity exists which takes donations and does charitable stuff, then a seperate company exists which makes money and sells stuff (does trade) and it happens to be run by the same folks, and donate money to the charity (or have some kind of 75% of our profits get donated to charity) promise. That's super trivial to unwind as the charity often has no formal ownership over the trading company, it is really just a beneficiary.
    - matt-p 2y ago
      To be fair to the raspberry pi group, I think they were in a difficult position and the whole thing was getting much, much bigger than they ever had anticipated. On the grapevine, they had more money than they knew how to get rid of in accordance with their very narrow charitable objectives.
    - veltas 2y ago
      The bit that feels dishonest is they share a brand, and publicly present themselves as a charity, and actually it's for personal gain. Sure they dotted their i's, but it seems like the key difference between the RPI foundation and the Captain Tom Foundation[1] is they have better lawyers. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/21/captain-tom-family-personally-benefited-from-charity-they-founded-report-finds https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/21/captain-tom-...

bluescrn 2y ago

That's not expensive these days. Apple would charge about £200 for 8GB more...

GlacierFox 2y ago
It's not expensive because apple severely overcharges for pitiful amounts of ram. What?
- geerlingguy 2y ago
  Heh don't look at NVIDIA and prices for more VRAM!

gunalx 2y ago

I agree. The 2gb skew is borderline useless in most applications you wouldnt just use a pico these days. (I would even line a 32gb skew but realise that is unreasonable for the current soc)

matt-p 2y ago
Yes, and there is cost in maintaining an extra SKU. It would cost about $3 to make the 2GB RPI5 a 4GB PI5, and you might save something close to that by removing a SKU. You then get a bunch of new applications (which need more RAM) for your SBC and your product sells more as it looks better value. On the whole that $3 is now looking like a bargin. I don't think 32GB is needed or sensible, so will disagree there.
- schappim 2y ago
  If you look at all their accessories, particularly the country-specific customisations for keyboards and power supplies, Raspberry Pi now offers an incredibly large range of SKUs.
- kruador 2y ago
  Actually $9 more to go from 2GB to 4GB, just for the RAM chip itself. See my reply above. 32GB is impossible at present. No-one makes a 256 gigabit (32x8) chip to fit in the same footprint, so then you have to do a new board design to support multiple chips, which might not be doable in the board's current footprint. Micron do a 192 gigabit (=24GB) chip but it's LPDDR5, rather than LPDDR4x, which I imagine the RPi 5's SoC can't drive.
  - matt-p 2y ago
    No, I can see in 10K volume it's a bit over $3, and RPI will be paying less for sure. Even if we look at farnell for a qty of 50.. https://uk.farnell.com/micron/mt53e512m32d1zw-046-wt-b/dram-512m-x-32bit-25-to-85deg/dp/3954472 https://uk.farnell.com/micron/mt53e512m32d1zw-046-wt-b/dram-... 50 - £9.29 EX VAT https://uk.farnell.com/micron/mt53e1g32d2fw-046-wt-a/dram-1g-x-32bit-25-to-85deg-c/dp/3652197 https://uk.farnell.com/micron/mt53e1g32d2fw-046-wt-a/dram-1g... 50 - £12.04 EX VAT Those are public prices (not even account price) for buying only 50, and there's ~$3 difference even there.

kruador 2y ago

The problem is that to fit on the existing board, you need a single RAM package with the same number and function of pads. Looking at a sample photo of a board, I can see it has a Micron package labelled D8CJN. Looking that up on Micron's FBGA parts decoder, the full product code is MT53E2G32D4DE-046 WT:C which is a 64Gb (64 gigabit, i.e. 8 gigabyte) LPDDR4x RAM at 2133 MHz, in a 200-ball TFBGA package. Looking at Micron's range, they now have a 128Gb (16GB) chip with matching specs, which is the MT53E4G32D8CY-046 WT:C. That chip costs £74.66 per chip from Mouser Electronics (just one site I found selling it) in quantities of 1,360. In contrast the 2GB chip - which I surmise is a MT53E512M32D1ZW-046 - costs £9.26 each in quantities of 250. There's a price break listed for 2,720 of the things, but I'm not going to ask for a quote. So that's £65.40 more for the larger RAM chip. Which is about $80 on today's mid-market exchange rates. Looking at the 4GB it's probably a MT53E1G32D2FW-046, which is £16.72 in bulk quantities of 1,360 from the same wholesaler (for the revision C part). So that's an extra £7.46 or about $9. Why are other systems' RAM upgrades cheaper? Largely because they use more chips, and therefore each chip has less capacity. That means either the chip is less dense, or it's a smaller die, so fewer defects are likely within the one chip, making yields higher. An SO-DIMM might have two or four chips on it, depending on whether it's populated on one side or both; a full-size DIMM might be 8 or 16 (or 9 or 18 if it has ECC). Obviously I've made the assumption that this is just a drop-in replacement chip on the existing board. But I assume it would be very hard to redesign the board to fit in the same form factor, with all connectors in the same positions, but add on another RAM chip. If the SoC even supports driving more than one RAM chip, which it may not. TL;DR that's what Micron charge for the larger chip.

matt-p 2y ago
There's no way that's what RPI are paying, or even close - it should be somewhere around $7 or so for a 4GB part, $3.60-4 for a 2GB part. If we use your prices above just as a "scale" then you can already see here that 1X 4GB part is cheaper per GB than 2GB, so as I say it's around $3 in cost to upgrade the base model from 2>4GB.

rldjbpin 2y ago

funny how nobody (even the OP) commented on the apple-like nature of the pricing here. especially when it reminds of the recent m4 mac mini memory upgrade costing more than the base model. (EDIT: yes i get that for the mac mini the ram is getting doubled, but here the memory increase is also similar in amount). i recognize the new memory chip SKU that made it possible, but you need a lot of mental gymnastics before justifying the compromise.