6 ms·

This time is different. https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/#ram.ddr5.6000.2x32768 https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/#ram.ddr5.60...

by ttul 6mo ago

This time is different. https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/#ram.ddr5.6000.2x32768 https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/#ram.ddr5.60... The price for a couple of 32GB sticks is now over $1200 after being stable at about $200 for several years until last September. That's not a blip; that's 6-fold hike and there is no sign it is slowing down any time soon.

JollySharp0 6mo ago
Did you not read what I said? I couldn't even get a replacement video card at any price during the height of COVID and believe you I had the money to pay for one. I couldn't even get a Raspberry PI (any model) for about a year. They were constantly out of stock. > That's not a blip; that's 6-fold hike and there is no sign it is slowing down any time soon. How does that invalidate anything I said? As states in the article this will change, it will take years but it isn't forever. I find it hard to believe that people here cannot make do with whatever hardware they already have. I also don't believe those small SBCs would have survived long term anyway. Most people just use a Raspberry PI. It is either a MiniPC or a Raspberry PI.
- meroes 6mo ago
  Ya I mean gfx card was pretty bad during Covid. Discord groups that had real-time line counts and pictures of the line at most best buys across the country (US). The only way I got one was overpaying and a lottery system that bundled it with other hardware because they knew everyone would still buy it. It was impossible to buy online normally as you needed some kind of automated way to buy it before stock zeroed the minute it was posted. You could pay a scalper for a gfx card, but stores had none. Now, stores have RAM at least.
- Dylan16807 6mo ago
  > Did you not read what I said? I couldn't even get a replacement video card at any price during the height of COVID and believe you I had the money to pay for one. You're comparing to memory sticks that went up 6x. If you were offering anywhere near 6x MSRP and you couldn't get a video card... I don't believe you. https://www.pcmag.com/news/scalpers-have-sold-50000-nvidia-rtx-3000-gpus-through-ebay-stockx https://www.pcmag.com/news/scalpers-have-sold-50000-nvidia-r... https://www.pcmag.com/news/read-it-and-weep-heres-how-bad-nvidia-gpu-prices-got-in-a-single-year https://www.pcmag.com/news/read-it-and-weep-heres-how-bad-nv... These show GPUs available for 1.5-2.5x price, which fits what I remember. > I couldn't even get a Raspberry PI (any model) for about a year. https://picockpit.com/raspberry-pi/why-are-raspberry-pi-prices-so-high-will-it-improve/ https://picockpit.com/raspberry-pi/why-are-raspberry-pi-pric... I didn't look into Pi prices a whole lot, but this suggests they were continuously available for 2-3x price.
  - JollySharp0 6mo ago
    I am in the UK. Not the US! > If you were offering 5x MSRP and you couldn't get a video card... I don't believe you. My 1080Ti had died. I had to use a 8800GTS from the late 2000s for about a year. As that was the only GPU I had. I have no iGPU on my CPU. There was at one time, no stock available. Not on Amazon, Not on Overclockers, Not on Scan. They had some weird lotto system taking place on most sites. Scalpers claimed to have cards. But I wouldn't risk sending a lot of money to some random seller on ebay. > Unless this article is massively misleading, sure it was out of stock at 1x price but it wasn't out of stock at 2-3x price. Again I am in the UK. You could not buy any PI other than 1GB model and maybe the zero. Both of which were useless to me.
    - Dylan16807 6mo ago
      Okay, UK, maybe that changes things more than I expected. But what about ebay and the sites that replaced classified ads? And is it unreasonable for me to say that you could have bought a US listing and had it reshipped? Edit since you added: Scalpers claimed to have cards. But I wouldn't risk sending a lot of money to some random seller on ebay. Even with ebay's buyer protection? Well not to be mean but I think "I refused to use ebay" invalidates your claim that you couldn't buy a card.
      - JollySharp0 6mo ago
        > Even with ebay's buyer protection? I've had problems with it before (I can't remember specifics as it was a while ago). I'd rather not going through the hassle and/or risk in the first place. There are still plenty of scams on ebay. During this era there were people scamming. e.g the box for a GPU. Listing the entire specs and then putting right at the bottom of the listing it was only the box and not the card. > Well not to be mean but I think "I refused to use ebay" invalidates your claim that you couldn't buy a card. What you are doing is being hyper-pedantic. It is fucking tiresome when people do this online. If you are going to be a smart arse, I will modify my statement to say "I could not get a card from a reputable online store as they were all out of stock and did not wish to risk buying from a less reputable one". I would be foolish to trust some overpriced (or underpriced) listing on ebay. I've had an ebay/paypal account now for 25+ years, I've learned to never do this because I got screwed every time I did.
- throwaway23795 6mo ago
  [dead]
polishdude20 6mo ago
https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX00115488 https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX00115488
- Dylan16807 6mo ago
  Let's see, this is a low speed 2x16GB DDR4 kit for $300. The closest option on the pcpartpicker chart was about $75 as a stable price. So that one's only a 4x increase. Versus DDR5 where... it looks like a 5x increase to me? I'm seeing a jump from 200USD up to 1000USD. Edit: Oh there's an extra jump in the last month on the CAD version but not the USD version.
- kasabali 6mo ago
  that was like $80 last year.
KPGv2 6mo ago
I am not a hardware guy, so I am asking this in good faith: excluding people with corporate backing, who actually needs DDR5 RAM? Gamers? Why is DDR4 or DDR3 not good enough?
- HDBaseT 6mo ago
  Because modern CPUs are on platforms that support only DDR5. If you are a gamer, chances are you want one of the AMD X3D CPUs. Whilst AMD did produce 5600X3D, 5700X3D and the highly sought after 5800X3D, these are effectively unobtainable now (outside of the Used Market, which is already about 2X MSRP). You are effectively forced into AM5 (or whatever Intel is doing) and they require DDR5. You don't have the "choice" to use DDR4 anymore in most circumstances. If your question is more of a hypothetical (assuming we could use newer CPUs with DDR4 or even DDR3) the answer is a bit more blurred, but at least in a lot of gaming workloads, you aren't memory speed bound. There is some performance regressions, sometimes up to 15%, but a lot of this is negated with the X3D chips anyways (:
  - KPGv2 6mo ago
    Gotcha. So it's really just because of a failure of interop. CPUs don't support previous generation, so even if you don't need the RAM, you don't have a choice (assuming you need the latest CPU).
- nnevatie 6mo ago
  Who really needs more than warmth, shelter and something to eat and drink?
  - KPGv2 6mo ago
    That's an illogical analogy, and I'm confident you can do better but were just being disrespectful. A more apt analogy is "do you really need a 28 SEER rated air conditioning system when there's a much cheaper 21 SEER available?"
- zozbot234 6mo ago
  If you only need DDR3-like throughput you can keep a minimum of RAM for booting and caching, and set up swap on an Intel Optane drive: they're widely available and cheap (at least cheaper than RAM) on the second-hand market. (For read only workloads (no writes or only very rare writes) any ordinary SSD would suffice; the point of resorting to Optane is its unique wearout resistance.)

by ttul 6mo ago

JollySharp0 6mo ago

Did you not read what I said? I couldn't even get a replacement video card at any price during the height of COVID and believe you I had the money to pay for one. I couldn't even get a Raspberry PI (any model) for about a year. They were constantly out of stock. > That's not a blip; that's 6-fold hike and there is no sign it is slowing down any time soon. How does that invalidate anything I said? As states in the article this will change, it will take years but it isn't forever. I find it hard to believe that people here cannot make do with whatever hardware they already have. I also don't believe those small SBCs would have survived long term anyway. Most people just use a Raspberry PI. It is either a MiniPC or a Raspberry PI.

meroes 6mo ago
Ya I mean gfx card was pretty bad during Covid. Discord groups that had real-time line counts and pictures of the line at most best buys across the country (US). The only way I got one was overpaying and a lottery system that bundled it with other hardware because they knew everyone would still buy it. It was impossible to buy online normally as you needed some kind of automated way to buy it before stock zeroed the minute it was posted. You could pay a scalper for a gfx card, but stores had none. Now, stores have RAM at least.
Dylan16807 6mo ago
> Did you not read what I said? I couldn't even get a replacement video card at any price during the height of COVID and believe you I had the money to pay for one. You're comparing to memory sticks that went up 6x. If you were offering anywhere near 6x MSRP and you couldn't get a video card... I don't believe you. https://www.pcmag.com/news/scalpers-have-sold-50000-nvidia-rtx-3000-gpus-through-ebay-stockx https://www.pcmag.com/news/scalpers-have-sold-50000-nvidia-r... https://www.pcmag.com/news/read-it-and-weep-heres-how-bad-nvidia-gpu-prices-got-in-a-single-year https://www.pcmag.com/news/read-it-and-weep-heres-how-bad-nv... These show GPUs available for 1.5-2.5x price, which fits what I remember. > I couldn't even get a Raspberry PI (any model) for about a year. https://picockpit.com/raspberry-pi/why-are-raspberry-pi-prices-so-high-will-it-improve/ https://picockpit.com/raspberry-pi/why-are-raspberry-pi-pric... I didn't look into Pi prices a whole lot, but this suggests they were continuously available for 2-3x price.
- JollySharp0 6mo ago
  I am in the UK. Not the US! > If you were offering 5x MSRP and you couldn't get a video card... I don't believe you. My 1080Ti had died. I had to use a 8800GTS from the late 2000s for about a year. As that was the only GPU I had. I have no iGPU on my CPU. There was at one time, no stock available. Not on Amazon, Not on Overclockers, Not on Scan. They had some weird lotto system taking place on most sites. Scalpers claimed to have cards. But I wouldn't risk sending a lot of money to some random seller on ebay. > Unless this article is massively misleading, sure it was out of stock at 1x price but it wasn't out of stock at 2-3x price. Again I am in the UK. You could not buy any PI other than 1GB model and maybe the zero. Both of which were useless to me.
  - Dylan16807 6mo ago
    Okay, UK, maybe that changes things more than I expected. But what about ebay and the sites that replaced classified ads? And is it unreasonable for me to say that you could have bought a US listing and had it reshipped? Edit since you added: Scalpers claimed to have cards. But I wouldn't risk sending a lot of money to some random seller on ebay. Even with ebay's buyer protection? Well not to be mean but I think "I refused to use ebay" invalidates your claim that you couldn't buy a card.
    - JollySharp0 6mo ago
      > Even with ebay's buyer protection? I've had problems with it before (I can't remember specifics as it was a while ago). I'd rather not going through the hassle and/or risk in the first place. There are still plenty of scams on ebay. During this era there were people scamming. e.g the box for a GPU. Listing the entire specs and then putting right at the bottom of the listing it was only the box and not the card. > Well not to be mean but I think "I refused to use ebay" invalidates your claim that you couldn't buy a card. What you are doing is being hyper-pedantic. It is fucking tiresome when people do this online. If you are going to be a smart arse, I will modify my statement to say "I could not get a card from a reputable online store as they were all out of stock and did not wish to risk buying from a less reputable one". I would be foolish to trust some overpriced (or underpriced) listing on ebay. I've had an ebay/paypal account now for 25+ years, I've learned to never do this because I got screwed every time I did.
throwaway23795 6mo ago
[dead]

polishdude20 6mo ago

https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX00115488 https://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX00115488

Dylan16807 6mo ago
Let's see, this is a low speed 2x16GB DDR4 kit for $300. The closest option on the pcpartpicker chart was about $75 as a stable price. So that one's only a 4x increase. Versus DDR5 where... it looks like a 5x increase to me? I'm seeing a jump from 200USD up to 1000USD. Edit: Oh there's an extra jump in the last month on the CAD version but not the USD version.
kasabali 6mo ago
that was like $80 last year.

KPGv2 6mo ago

I am not a hardware guy, so I am asking this in good faith: excluding people with corporate backing, who actually needs DDR5 RAM? Gamers? Why is DDR4 or DDR3 not good enough?

HDBaseT 6mo ago
Because modern CPUs are on platforms that support only DDR5. If you are a gamer, chances are you want one of the AMD X3D CPUs. Whilst AMD did produce 5600X3D, 5700X3D and the highly sought after 5800X3D, these are effectively unobtainable now (outside of the Used Market, which is already about 2X MSRP). You are effectively forced into AM5 (or whatever Intel is doing) and they require DDR5. You don't have the "choice" to use DDR4 anymore in most circumstances. If your question is more of a hypothetical (assuming we could use newer CPUs with DDR4 or even DDR3) the answer is a bit more blurred, but at least in a lot of gaming workloads, you aren't memory speed bound. There is some performance regressions, sometimes up to 15%, but a lot of this is negated with the X3D chips anyways (:
- KPGv2 6mo ago
  Gotcha. So it's really just because of a failure of interop. CPUs don't support previous generation, so even if you don't need the RAM, you don't have a choice (assuming you need the latest CPU).
nnevatie 6mo ago
Who really needs more than warmth, shelter and something to eat and drink?
- KPGv2 6mo ago
  That's an illogical analogy, and I'm confident you can do better but were just being disrespectful. A more apt analogy is "do you really need a 28 SEER rated air conditioning system when there's a much cheaper 21 SEER available?"
zozbot234 6mo ago
If you only need DDR3-like throughput you can keep a minimum of RAM for booting and caching, and set up swap on an Intel Optane drive: they're widely available and cheap (at least cheaper than RAM) on the second-hand market. (For read only workloads (no writes or only very rare writes) any ordinary SSD would suffice; the point of resorting to Optane is its unique wearout resistance.)