[HN Gopher] Framework Raises DDR5 Memory Prices by 50% for DIY L...
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Framework Raises DDR5 Memory Prices by 50% for DIY Laptops
Author : mikece
Score : 179 points
Date : 2025-12-12 15:58 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.phoronix.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.phoronix.com)
| SlightlyLeftPad wrote:
| Yikes, I hadn't realized this was that big of a problem. The same
| exact G.skill z5 64Gb ram I bought 4 years ago is well on its way
| to being double the price. Does this have more to do with Crucial
| ending consumer product lines or tariffs?
| adastra22 wrote:
| It is because OpenAI bought 40% of the world's production
| capacity overnight. RAM is like toilet paper during Covid now.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| And also because Korean companies apparently fear US
| retribution if they start producing DDR4. I don't feel like
| "OpenAI bought half the supply" tells the entire story when
| the companies that used to produce DDR4 with the left over
| machines no longer dare to do so. Probably the prices
| wouldn't spike as they're doing right now if the ones who
| used to produce the older RAM generations actually continued
| doing so.
| officeplant wrote:
| What do you mean by this? From everything I can find points
| towards other companies winding down DDR4 production
| because of China's cheaper DDR4 production lines.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Why would the USA care if Korean makes legacy DDR? You're
| going to have to give some kind of context to this
| completely wild statement.
| prmoustache wrote:
| The toilet paper thing didn't really happen though because
| there is so much shit people can produce at a time and the
| demand never increased if you scaled it to a 2 weeks period.
| There was enough stock in warehouses that 3 days later every
| store had a full stock again and the prices never increased.
| mc32 wrote:
| True but office TP isn't Charmin. So the demand for Scott
| would go down, but demand for northern quilted and Charmin
| would go up!
| adastra22 wrote:
| Did we live through the same pandemic? At least where I
| live, there was shortages for weeks, and scarce for months.
|
| There was a real manufacturing shift that had to happen in
| the transition from commercial toilet paper to residential,
| which is made by totally different machines. The problem
| was real. It's just that someone, seeing that real problem,
| triggered a panic buy that resulted in cleared shelves and
| a misallocation of the actual supply, making everything
| worse for everyone.
|
| In the present case, OpenAI just took 40% of the world's
| supply off the market. That is massive, and will have
| implications for RAM availability for many industries. As a
| result, every other company immediately bought up as much
| supply as they could.
|
| Cars during Covid is probably the closer comparison,
| actually. A combined supply-drop followed by demand-shock
| resulting in skyrocketing prices and empty inventory.
| asa400 wrote:
| How much RAM should they be allowed to buy? Who should
| decide that?
| redserk wrote:
| Perhaps a quantity below "a single company causes enough
| of a spike in global demand that it'll have demonstrable
| impact in nearly every single industry"
|
| And usually trade regulators would be the entity to start
| being concerned.
|
| I assume you're on a quest to assert a "let a completely
| unregulated free market roar" position, but do recognize
| that global supply issues of critical components have
| negative market effects, especially when it'll have some
| impact on nearly every industry except perhaps lawn care.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > The toilet paper thing didn't really happen though
|
| It _absolutely_ happened. I was there, I saw it happen.
| Maybe it didn 't happen in your area, but others weren't so
| lucky.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The toilet paper thing didn't really happen [...]
|
| Yes, it did.
|
| > [...] because there is so much shit people can produce at
| a time and the demand never increased if you scaled it to a
| 2 weeks period. There was enough stock in warehouses that 3
| days later every store had a full stock again and the
| prices never increased.
|
| No, there wasn't in lots of places, and demand for the kind
| of toilet paper that fits on home dispensers _did_ increase
| (and demand for the kind of big rolls used exclusively in
| institutional settings decreased, and shifting between
| those two for manufacturing is _not_ quick), and there were
| extended supply issues in many places. (This was certainly
| true where I lived, but I would expect it had _lots_ of
| regional variance, because supply chains are regional, the
| share of workers that were moved home because of either the
| practicality of remote work or workplaces being shutdown
| varied regionally because of both policy and industry
| differences, and because the share of workplaces that use
| industrial style TP vs TP compatible with home style
| dispensers probably also varies considerably.)
| mNovak wrote:
| I literally had a friend mail us a crate of TP in our time
| of need. Thankfully they had access to industrial
| suppliers.
|
| Though you're right that the prices didn't skyrocket, as
| that would have been considered price gouging during an
| emergency, which would have been PR suicide at a minimum if
| not actually illegal.
| nancyminusone wrote:
| I just last week sold some DDR5 I bought in April for triple
| what I paid for it.
| esseph wrote:
| Crucial was shut down so they could focus on selling more ram
| to hyperscalers. That happened because of the state of things.
|
| Prices are not expected to recover until 2028.
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| The state of things...meaning AI companies buying up the
| world's supply of RAM
| embedding-shape wrote:
| I think maybe long-term the effect of Korean companies no
| longer daring to reuse old machines to produce DDR4 because
| of US retribution is the bigger cause of that.
| wtallis wrote:
| Repeating this weird claim won't make it true. DDR4 isn't
| going to come back into fashion, even during a DRAM
| shortage. Demand for DDR4 can't increase meaningfully
| when no current-generation processors can use it, and
| older-generation processors aren't seeing any increase in
| production or sales. DDR4 _is not_ a substitute good for
| the RAM that 's in short supply.
| kasabali wrote:
| He's kinda right even though he's kinda wrong.
|
| He's confused about the retribution thing. Korean
| manufacturers aren't afraid of US to restart DDR4
| manufacturing. They don't want to restart it anyway. But
| I'm pretty sure I've recently read it somewhere credible
| that they'd normally sell their old machinery but now
| they can't because they're afraid China would be the
| eventual buyer (via proxies) and they'd be inadvertently
| in violation of US sanctions , so instead of selling they
| just locked down the old machinery to gather dust
| instead.
|
| And about DDR4 not being relevant, even though DDR4
| manufacturing stopped earlier this year and DDR4 prices
| have been slowly but steadily increasing long before this
| crisis, after the crisis DDR4 prices have also tripled
| just like DDR5 prices, even in the used market. So
| regardless of whether it's a real demand or panic
| response, the effect is still real on people wanting to
| upgrade their DDR4 systems. These people who probably
| just wants to update RAM in their systems in the hope
| that it'd help them delay their switch to DDR5 systems
| for a few years while bracing the impact. Had Chinese
| manufacturers continued to manufacture DDR4 at least this
| wouldn't be that bad for the existing system upgrades of
| DDR4 systems.
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| Yes.
|
| AI companies will continue to buy up all the RAM so you and
| I have to pay the cost for it.
|
| They will also eat up all the energy so you and I have to
| pay more for energy.
|
| They will also then try and put you and I out of a job.
|
| And if they fail to do so, they will then get your and my
| tax dollars to bail them out.
|
| There should be real AI research and technology
| development, but the way it's being done right now is heads
| the AI hyperscalers win, tails, all of us lose.
|
| It's being run as a massive scam against the rest of us.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Lets be honest: Most peoples computing needs have been
| satisfied in the last decade.
|
| FOMO and Number goes up is the primary issue both with AI
| and most compute today.
|
| There's so many made up numbers these days that does zero
| productive work, like FPS, refresh rates, 4k, 8k, 16k.
|
| Bloat is everywhere.
| seg_lol wrote:
| We need to figure out how AI can use housing and food to
| complete resource exhaustion. You forgot to include AI
| water consumption.
| SlightlyLeftPad wrote:
| It's all very Orwellian. Consolidation of resources and
| the eventual result of total control over those.
| dsego wrote:
| It's like cancer eating at the body.
| eikenberry wrote:
| What is this estimation based on? I'd think once the bubble
| pops pricing would start to return to normal levels and the
| general consensus seems to think the bubble won't last that
| long.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > The same exact G.skill z5 64Gb ram I bought 4 years ago is
| well on its way to being double the price.
|
| The RAM I bought last year has more than tripled. 2x32 DDR5
| kits, $240/kit, now $820.
| crote wrote:
| The end of Crucial is a symptom, not a cause. Crucial is merely
| Micron's factory brand. Nothing is stopping OEMs like G.Skill
| or Kingston from buying DRAM chips from Micron and putting them
| on consumer RAM sticks.
|
| Well, that's the theory at least. In practice it's more
| accurate to say that Micron had cut down their consumer
| allocation that _not even their factory brand_ can get enough
| chips to survive.
| j45 wrote:
| It seems easier to purchase from hardware vendors that have
| already locked in their prices for RAM.
| esseph wrote:
| That will quickly run dry.
| teeray wrote:
| Especially given the arbitrage opportunity that presents.
| hurturue wrote:
| like Backblaze was purchasing HDDs from retail store, so will
| (small) AI providers
| walterbell wrote:
| https://www.trendforce.com/news/2025/12/05/exclusive-memory-...
|
| _> Lenovo has begun notifying clients of coming price hikes,
| with adjustments set to take effect in early 2026.. Dell is
| expected to raise prices by at least 15-20%, with the increase
| potentially taking effect as soon as mid-December.. Dell COO Jeff
| Clarke warned that he's "never seen memory-chip costs rise this
| fast," .. Lenovo [cited] two key factors: an intensifying memory
| shortage and the rapid integration of AI technologies..
| TrendForce has downgraded its 2026 notebook shipment forecast
| from an initial 1.7% YoY growth to a 2.4% YoY decline._
|
| https://hanchouhsu.substack.com/p/overview-of-the-memory-mar...
|
| _> The full-year price increase for Samsung's storage products
| supplied to Apple in 2026 has been finalized, with DRAM prices
| rising by 53% and NAND prices rising by 52%. Earlier rumors
| suggesting an 80% full-year increase for DRAM were inaccurate..
| Apple negotiated the prices down to the aforementioned levels and
| signed long-term agreements (LTAs).. Kioxia also signed a similar
| agreement with Apple, with price increases consistent with
| Samsung's._
| ndiddy wrote:
| Dell now charges more for RAM than Apple for some models:
| https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-now-beats-dell-at...
| Bayart wrote:
| The margins on memory for Apple were so absurd that they
| should have more ability to eat up the costs, if they wanted
| to. I'm assuming they would, to the extent that they're a
| device company more so than a service company yet.
| jsheard wrote:
| I don't think Apple _ever_ adjusts the price of existing
| products, for better (eating the cost of part shortages) or
| worse (over-charging for old parts). The real test will be
| what they do with upcoming products.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I can't find specific examples, but I'm almost certain
| they have at some points in the past adjusted pricing of
| upgrades mid-cycle.
| Neywiny wrote:
| I have 96GB of 6000 MT/s. Pcpartpicker says 64GB kits have
| quadrupled in price since August. So I'm almost surprised it's
| only 50%.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Literally bought 96GB (4x24GB) of DDR5 5600Mhz (edit: RDIMM
| ECC) just 5 days ago, fearing the prices would go up even more
| moving forward. Paid 1500 EUR for it in total :/ Southern
| Europe FWIW.
| kachapopopow wrote:
| I think you got scammed by a local vendor, I got ddr5 2x48gb
| in europe 6400mhz (non ecc) for 320ish euro.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| It's RDIMM ECC DDR5, for a sTR5 system, guess that's why
| the price difference. Should have mentioned that, my bad.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| A year ago, Framework-branded memory for DIY laptops cost,
| IIRC, 2x Amazon for equivalent specs (not the same modules--the
| ADATA ones that Framework puts their stickers on are
| theoretically available retail but in practice complete
| unobtanium in most countries). Not Apple pricing, but they
| definitely have some margin to eat into.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| I feel like I got the last chopper out of 'nam buying my
| G.Skill 256GB 6000MT/s kit when I did. I paid $780 in July and
| now it's listed at.. $2700, over 300% higher. That and buying a
| bunch of sticks for some Tyan boards I got on a whim last year
| with some engineering samples I got working on them.
| meindnoch wrote:
| cc @apple
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Thanks, Sam :<
| esafak wrote:
| Horde it, Sam. For old times' sake.
| chairmansteve wrote:
| It reminds me of the AI paperclip problem. The AIs are eating
| all the memory chips and energy. And GPUs of course.
|
| Except its caused by good old bubble capitalism.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > all the memory chips and energy. And GPUs of course.
|
| Yes and no and yes.
|
| AI _is_ having a bad impact on electricity prices, but the
| actual graph of US electrical use was pretty flat for 20
| years and is barely increasing even now. If the bubble
| keeps going strong we _might_ see AI get up to 10% several
| years from now.
|
| The RAM and GPU use is a whole different category of
| dominating.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Actual article: https://frame.work/blog/updates-on-memory-
| pricing-and-naviga...
| sosodev wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this. Their point about the 128GB desktop
| mainboard being a bargain while their prices remain low rings
| true. I bought one a couple weeks ago because I've been wanting
| to build a beefy, efficient home server and I think this might
| be the last window of affordability for quite a while.
| dismalaf wrote:
| What's wild is OpenAI doubling down on hyperscaling when it's
| obvious that the gains from pre-training are coming to an end.
| They seem determined to just go out in flames...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The thing is, it seems like they are planning to force
| _everyone else_ out of the market. Acquire all the RAM they can
| possibly get, leave none for the competition, pray to survive
| the entire mess.
|
| It's the inevitable peak of the venture capital pipeline, just
| this time it isn't individual industries (e.g. taxis with Uber,
| hotels with AirBnB) getting squeezed out by unsustainable
| pricing - it's the economy at large that's suffering this time.
|
| And it's high time for us as a society to put an end to this
| madness. End the AI VC economy _before it ends our economy_.
| zb3 wrote:
| Was this market manipulation legal? If so, that's crazy..
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Oh, both Uber and AirBnB did get dinged by the courts - but
| it took them years and the damage was already done, on top
| of that the fines were laughable.
|
| We need the corporate death penalty aka forced dissolution
| for egregious cases of misbehavior, we need easier ways to
| pierce the corporate veil (and I'm more and more inclined
| to actually support the death penalty here as well, despite
| the potential for abuse), we need corporate fines to all be
| measured % of gross income, at least double the profit
| margin.
|
| And we need all of that _fast_.
| riskable wrote:
| Perhaps we can call this type of maneuver, "The Sam Altman":
| Your expensive business's mid-term outlook not looking so
| good? Why not use all that cash/credit to corner the market
| in some commodity in order to cripple your perceived
| competition?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| He's not the first one though. The crypto miners used to do
| the same (I distinctly 'member first GPUs, then HDDs, then
| ordinary RAM being squoze by yet another new shitcoin in
| less than a year), and Uber plus the food delivery apps are
| a masterclass in how to destroy competition with seemingly
| infinite cash.
| kasabali wrote:
| Crypto miners isn't comparable at all. They were buying
| finished products and immediately putting them into use.
| dismalaf wrote:
| This is a huge Hail Mary... IMO they'd be better served
| slowing down the training pipeline, becoming profitable now,
| hiring a bunch of scientists and figuring out the next AI
| technology.
| compass_copium wrote:
| Agree with step 1 here but steps 2 and 4 are a total pipe
| dream
| chairmansteve wrote:
| These gambits never work though. In 6 months you'll be able
| to get memory chips and GPUs for nothing.....
|
| There's a few historical examples here....
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > In 6 months you'll be able to get memory chips and GPUs
| for nothing.
|
| I highly doubt that. Memory chip production takes _years_
| to scale up, which is partially a reason why the memory
| market (both RAM and solid-storage) is so susceptible to
| "pig cycles" - high prices incentivize new players to join
| the market (although less likely than decades ago, given
| just how much capital one needs and how complex the
| technology has gotten) and for established players to scale
| up their production, and then prices collapse due to
| oversupply.
|
| For GPUs, the situation is even worse. During the GPU
| crypto mining craze, at least that was consumer GPUs so
| there indeed was an influx of cheap second hand gear once
| that market collapsed due to ASICs - but this time? These
| chips don't even have the hardware for rendering videos any
| more, so even if GPU OEMs would now get a ton of left over
| GPU chips they couldn't make general-purpose GPUs out of
| them any more.
|
| Additionally, this assumption assumes that the large web of
| AI actors collapses in the next 6 months, which is even
| more unlikely - there's just too much actual cash floating
| around in the market.
| Y_Y wrote:
| You can play Counterstrike on a H100 if you really want
| to.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| You can't, it doesn't have any video output port per the
| product brief [1].
|
| Of course, if one is inclined, I'd take a wild guess and
| say you could try something like Steam Remote, but I
| wouldn't bet on that actually working out. And even _if_
| you could get it working - per an analysis of German
| newspaper Heise, the bloody thing has less shader compute
| capacity than the iGPU of AMD 's Ryzen CPUs [2].
| 30.000EUR - and it'll probably struggle running GTA 5.
|
| [1] https://www.nvidia.com/content/dam/en-
| zz/Solutions/Data-Cent...
|
| [2] https://www.heise.de/news/Nvidias-H100-kommt-im-
| deutschen-Re...
| Marsymars wrote:
| Just use an AI to describe the Counterstrike scene to
| you!
| Y_Y wrote:
| !RemindMe six months
|
| Of course I'm joking, there are LLMs to check these things
| now.
| foobiekr wrote:
| What other option do they have?
|
| This is a "the horse might sing" situation for the whole market
| that focused on breakthrough-level results (AGI, ASI, or even
| just "not going off the rails after the third response").
| seg_lol wrote:
| So if it "works" out for OpenAI, not only do they have all
| the ram, power, water but they also have all the jobs.
| jordanb wrote:
| At some point it's going to make sense to buy a computer without
| ram once the lack of ram pushes demand down for all other
| components.
|
| Maybe this won't last that long given the RAM shortage is
| apparently a corner attempt by Sam Altman.
| acephal wrote:
| From what I've read, he's tied up RAM manufacturers through
| 2029. That's a lot of quartely earnings reports for many firms
| in the economy where they watch consumer spend come to a
| screeching halt.
| klez wrote:
| One has to hope OpenAI goes bankrupt and they flood the
| market with used RAM sticks at bargain bin price.
| teeray wrote:
| Don't worry, they've cozied up for a nice fat bailout if
| that happens.
| drtgh wrote:
| As with all Ponzi schemes OpenAI will eventually go
| bankrupt, yet it continues to receive money from the
| unwary. I wonder how the research division at Disney feels
| about what their bosses have done...
|
| But it should happen earlier due what is happening with the
| RAM, as it sounds quite illegal, like anticompetitive
| hoarding, cornering the market, raising rivals' costs,
| consumer welfare harm, and so on.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| They bought unfinished components and have no ability to
| finish them. They're now waste just sitting on shelves and
| by the time we could do this and get them into production
| lines, they'll be obsoletd by DDR6.
| thway15269037 wrote:
| Now I'm curious: does this situation classify as force-
| majeure for a major firms? "Hey, you know, actually our
| entire consumer base just disappeared overnight. Crazy,
| huh?". And will various governments have to intervene to save
| them when/if that happens.
|
| Not taking into account that they all be busy handing money
| to openAI, at least someone somewhere has to notice that
| something is very wrong.
| pengaru wrote:
| I assembled a new 32c/64t 7970X threadripper with 128GB DDR5 and
| a 16GB RX9070XT over the summer...
|
| This memory situation has me pondering putting it all up on ebay
| embedding-shape wrote:
| I started thinking about it last spring, been slowly finding
| the ideal setup over time. Finally bit the bullet just like 5
| days ago, fearing it's about to become worse rather than
| better, but it hurt as much anyway :/
| jszymborski wrote:
| If DDR5 will still be around in two years, you might want to
| sell half of your RAM now and use those proceeds double it in a
| couple years?
|
| Or just cash out, that's always great.
| abawany wrote:
| I upgraded my laptop from 32gb to 64gb (should have gotten
| 96gb) over the summer and I'm considering the same for the
| leftover 32gb - fear of not having spares in case of defects
| holds me back though.
| fcoury wrote:
| I thought Apple would get around and improve their memory prices
| with time, I guess it's the opposite: all manufacturers are now
| becoming Apple given these raises.
|
| I wonder what Apple's next move will be :-)
|
| EDIT: Spelling
| echelon wrote:
| They are not becoming Apple. They are updating the prices of
| their components to the underlying market costs. Framework lets
| you replace the memory modules.
|
| Apple is a fashionable brand that commands a price premium.
| They can charge much higher prices and will charge the amount
| that will maximize their profits.
|
| BMW charges to enable heated seats. They know their customers
| have money and will pay. Apple is the same.
|
| Framework has to competitively price. They're being forced to
| update pricing to reflect the reality of supply and demand.
|
| There's also this:
|
| > Due to [Framework's] memory pricing said to be more
| competitive below market rates, they also adjusted their return
| policy to prevent scalpers from purchasing DIY Edition laptops
| with memory while then returning just the laptops. The DDR5
| must be returned now with DIY laptop order returns.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Have you seen laptop prices these days? Macbooks aren't even
| sold at a premium anymore.
| gpm wrote:
| And on the flip side Framework laptops have generally been
| sold at a premium.
| threecheese wrote:
| I am wondering myself; this M1 is getting long in the tooth,
| maybe now is the time to upgrade.
| wmf wrote:
| 50% won't be enough so they'll need to raise prices again in a
| month or two.
| acephal wrote:
| Altman should be jailed for this. Single-handedly crashing
| consumer spending in an entire sector of the economy. At the very
| least for the reason that that was supposed to happen _after_
| they had the AI in hand to supplant majority white collar labor,
| not before.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| He's just one of the ringleaders of the AI parade. This
| certainly isn'tjust him, just like the american corruption
| isn't just donald trump
| derektank wrote:
| We're contemplating jailing people for buying manufactured
| goods at the market price now?
| stackskipton wrote:
| Yes? Reports are that OpenAI is buying unfinished memory kits
| which they have no capacity to complete. It appears that
| OpenAI is just buying them to remove them from the market and
| damage their competitors. In United States, that used to be
| considered against the law if we were actually enforcing such
| things.
| m00x wrote:
| Since COVID, this has been the norm for any industry that
| requires chips.
|
| Operation handbook now dictates that you should have 3-4
| years of all the ICs you'll need for production so you
| don't end up like the car manufacturers.
| ikeashark wrote:
| I doubt this is to create artificial scarcity. Especially
| when OpenAI is the biggest player thought to be able to
| build AGI first and that it is now backed by the US & the
| Saudis.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > thought to be able to build AGI first
|
| Who still thinks this?
| ikeashark wrote:
| The US Government, Saudis, consumer/private investors
| apparently or at least the one that can build the most
| economically useful AI. I myself believe Google is most
| likely.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Didn't they sign some big contacts to lock in non-market
| prices?
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Yes, and I actually think it's a symptom of advanced societal
| decay that you think this is somehow an unreasonable
| proposition.
|
| What OpenAI is doing will drive up prices for years,
| shredding consumer welfare, limiting competition and forcing
| marginally-profitable products off the market, and _they 're
| not even going to use the RAM_. They're wrecking supply
| chains simply because they no longer have any technical
| advantage now that Google and Anthropic have caught up and
| passed them, and have to resort to dirty tricks like this and
| digital heroin Sora to try and justify their valuation. No
| functioning society would or should allow you to get away
| with that.
|
| Frankly, much worse things than jail should happen to Altman
| for this kind of torching of the commons, and jail is the
| watered-down compromise position.
| hodgehog11 wrote:
| As always, it's the intent that matters.
|
| For the sake of argument, what if Amazon decided tomorrow
| that they would secure exclusive contracts with all food
| suppliers and then hoard all the food to starve out the
| people they don't want to have it? Or at least, drive up the
| price of food so it becomes completely unaffordable? I know
| people can simply grow their own food so it's a bit
| different, but hopefully it gets the point across. It's anti-
| trust on an unprecedented level.
| squigz wrote:
| > I know people can simply grow their own food
|
| Small thing, but this is not simple or realistic at all.
| How does someone in an apartment grow enough food for their
| family?
| ikeashark wrote:
| But OpenAI legitimately needs HBM. Amazon in this instance
| doesn't need food and is doing purely to create artificial
| scarcity. If OpenAI were to actually not use the HBM then
| it could mean something.
| kasabali wrote:
| They didn't buy "manufactured goods", they reserved 40% of
| the yearly wafer output for the whole world that haven't even
| been made yet for themselves.
| sh34r wrote:
| The Sherman Antitrust Act has outlawed abuses of monopsony
| power since _1890._
|
| What we should really be asking is, why did we ever stop
| jailing wanton criminals like Scam Alt-Man?
| lenerdenator wrote:
| Simple: they create value for the right people. Namely,
| politicians who get their donations, and a generation that,
| despite not having enough children to grow the economy
| organically, doesn't want to work any... er... wants to
| retire.
|
| Thus, they invest in retirement and pension funds, who in
| turn invest the money in businesses to earn a return. Since
| that return must increase constantly, and organic growth is
| no longer possible, you have to pull shenanigans as a
| businessman to meet the requirements of the shareholders,
| lest they kick you out of the plane with a golden
| parachute.
|
| So we let them do those shenanigans and the politicians
| don't do anything about it.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| People go to prison for market manipulation all of the time.
| hyperpape wrote:
| I'm aware that the US is changing, but in the past, we had an
| idea that you don't go to jail unless there was a specific
| crime that you could be charged with.
|
| This "crime" would be written down somewhere in what we called
| a "law", that would state penalties, with "maximum" sentences.
|
| And, to forestall your comments, one of our other traditions
| was that you applied these rules even to lying sons of bitches
| (which Altman is).
|
| Sorry to be old fashioned here.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure this _clearly_ runs afoul of anticompetitive
| laws, no? Altman is intentionally sabotaging the global
| electronics supply chain using their existing market
| dominance to prevent competitors from being able to operate.
|
| And, tangentially, I really don't know what world you lived
| in. The US has arrested civil rights leaders and overthrown
| countries and went through an entire era of McCarthyism to
| get here: where the US president is having investigations
| into his political enemies for what amounts to "disloyalty".
| It's basically a national given that cops plant evidence on
| black folk regularly.
|
| Since when has America been this bastion of lawfulness?
| asa400 wrote:
| Serious question: should the principals of the RAM
| manufacturers be jailed?
| sh34r wrote:
| I believe it depends on which parties are responsible for
| the criminal antitrust violations. Is it the
| manufacturers abusing monopoly power, or is it OpenAI
| abusing monopsony power?
|
| I'm not a lawyer or a forensic accountant, but given how
| remarkably stable the RAM market was until SCAMA
| disrupted it, I'm inclined to think the answer to your
| question is a resounding "no."
| estimator7292 wrote:
| The ones that collude to fix prices need to be in jail,
| yes.
| hyperpape wrote:
| Since it clearly runs afoul of anticompetitive laws, it
| will be easy for you to find case law that demonstrates
| that, alongside credible sources stating that OpenAIs
| actions are prosecutable that make that case.
|
| This is big news, it's not like the folks who write about
| antitrust would just ignore it.
| sh34r wrote:
| You should look up the monopsony provisions of the Sherman
| Antitrust Act of 1890, as well as the Robinson-Patman Act of
| 1936 which prohibits predatory price discrimination schemes.
| Scam Alt-Man should be paying the same price for RAM as us
| plebes, if the DOJ wasn't derelict in its duty to enforce
| antitrust law.
|
| It's wild how Bork's fraudulent legal theories have been
| converted to into dogma within a generation.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| mo*nop*so*ny /m@'naps@ne/ a market situation in which there
| is only one buyer.
|
| It seems like the issue we're having is that we are buyers
| who are competing against OpenAI, who is another buyer.
| There isn't only 1 buyer or 1 seller of RAM.
| sh34r wrote:
| Like monopolies, monopsony power exists on a spectrum.
| For example, Walmart exercises extreme monopsony power
| over suppliers, despite not being the only retailer in
| town.
| pmdr wrote:
| This is a dystopia no one really thought about. A handful of
| people anointed to spend borrowed money on a (so far
| unprofitable) quest to destabilize the world's economy,
| alienate the working class and make everything we've enjoyed
| the past 15-20 years a luxury.
| beeflet wrote:
| a dystopian world in which computer memory is sort of
| expensive, god save us
| jdprgm wrote:
| It certainly feels like this should fall somewhere along a
| spectrum of antitrust behavior. It's astounding the degree to
| which they are able to operate as if money isn't real. Strange
| circular deals and infinite VC money really fuck with markets
| and these past few years we've been venturing down a
| particularly concerning branch of capitalism.
| beeflet wrote:
| Won't someone think of the gamers?
| neogodless wrote:
| Eh my (anemic) work laptop from 2019 probably won't get
| replaced for an extra year because my employer won't
| authorize the big laptop order at inflated prices.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| We need to normalize tar & feathering again.
| LetsGetTechnicl wrote:
| Great, another thing AI is ruining
| WorldPeas wrote:
| There's an errant thing at the back of my mind, I can't help but
| wonder if this ram shortage could revive the ram dimm as a
| concept as so many manufacturers were adopting the soldered-ram
| approach. I'm sure though this won't come to pass
| wmf wrote:
| Retail DIMMs are more expensive than soldered RAM so that just
| makes things worse.
| zrm wrote:
| The price difference in terms of manufacturing cost is
| immaterial. But if people can't afford a machine with 32GB
| anymore then they're going to suffer one with 8GB knowing
| from the outset that it's not enough and then have a strong
| preference for the ability to upgrade it later when prices
| come back down or they get more money.
| Computer0 wrote:
| Do most people know what the bottlenecks of their computing
| experience are?
| hopelite wrote:
| It seems the only thing that could break this is the off chance
| that the SCOTUS rules that the tariffs are illegal and/or
| Congress strips the Presidency of the power they gave it in
| utters incompetence many decades ago.
|
| I'm thinking with sufficient pressure by all tech interested
| people it could become an issue in the midterms and even force
| Trump to sign agreements not to tariff RAM by Korean producers
| who could ramp up production.
|
| Frankly, I wouldn't even be surprised if we start seeing RAM
| smuggling. In not sure of drug prices, but would smuggling RAM
| not be at least just as profitable, especially without the high
| profile and risk?
|
| Hey! ... hey, you! You want to have some fun?
| wmf wrote:
| Tariffs aren't the problem.
| arjie wrote:
| I bought a couple of terabytes of RAM and now I feel like one of
| those crypto-whales haha. It's just sitting there in the corner.
| One was a lucky one, too, because I tried to negotiate a guy to
| sell me a system with less RAM but he wouldn't discount it much.
| Now it pays for most of the cost of the damn thing.
|
| These spikes do happen. I remember one for hard drives after a
| storm. The surprising thing for me is how cheap a super-powerful
| Epyc is these days. But then you need to fill the 12 RAM slots
| and that becomes more costly. Funny times.
| craftkiller wrote:
| You don't NEED to fill the 12 ram slots. My personal 1U has an
| Epyc 9124 and only 4 of the 12 ram slots filled. I figured, ram
| will only get cheaper with time so I can fill the remaining 8
| slots in the future. Turns out I was wrong, but regardless, the
| server runs fine on 4 sticks.
| arjie wrote:
| Haha the 'need' is a joke need. Like I need to upgrade my
| 9654s to the 9755 I have sitting in a box.
| jdprgm wrote:
| Are you actually selling some of the RAM though?
|
| I was curious with this spike and while the amazon listing for
| 2x48GB DDR5 that I bought a year or so ago has indeed almost
| tripled the ebay resale value for similar packages sold
| recently is all over the map with some close to what I
| originally paid and some as much as double but probably on
| average 30-50% increase which is nowhere near the amazon
| listing.
| arjie wrote:
| 1 GB RAM = 1 GB RAM man. I am HODLING!
|
| Haha, if I did sell I'd probably sell on /r/homelabsales
| which is a much more pleasant place to interact.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Ultimately this is OpenAI and their (circular) investors doubling
| down on a US sovereignty wet dream and "too big to fail".
|
| They might pull it off , but hell off a way to bet the economy
| dominos all on black.
| SchwKatze wrote:
| My question is, will the ram price go down at some point or is it
| a point of no return?
| wmf wrote:
| Yes, it will go back down eventually.
| cheraderama wrote:
| The situation is really sticky, since allegedly fabs are
| anxious to ramp up production, fearing the AI bubble will burst
| and they will be left with useless stock. So the usual supply
| chasing demand doesn't apply here and we might wait for a
| really long time...
| gpm wrote:
| Yes, we're just hitting the limits of current manufacturing not
| some fundamental limit like the availability of raw materials.
| Either demand will wane and the prices will go down, or
| manufacturing will scale up and prices will go down,
| eventually. That "eventually" does some work, but it's not
| remotely a case of "a point of no return".
|
| In fact long term this might well make RAM cheaper than it
| otherwise would be, because we'll make more of it and get
| better at producing it than we would have without the demand
| spike. I.e. Wright's Law in action - which is usually pretty
| good at producing the long term direction of prices of products
| like this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_curve_effect
| glaslong wrote:
| They'll come down some day, but between the massive ai co
| purchases, and how long Micron says it will take to bring up
| new production capacity... most estimates I've seen are that it
| stays high (or grows higher still) until at least 2028.
|
| https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/ram-prices-are-exploding...
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Work is skipping server, desktop, and laptop buys that were
| planned for 2026. Guess I am going to be fixing and patching a
| lot more often next year.
| quentindanjou wrote:
| Original article from Framework Blog:
|
| https://frame.work/blog/updates-on-memory-pricing-and-naviga...
| dustymcp wrote:
| I just bought 32gb ram at 650DKK 2 months ago and now the same
| ram goes for 3200+...
| Byron_t_Bulb wrote:
| In my opinion we are witnessing the market influences of a new
| type of public-private "Phoebus cartel" except at a total global
| scale where anti-terrorism laws require pricing businesses and
| individuals out of owning their own compute forcing them to rent
| compute from multinational hyperscaler cloud businesses who are
| integrated with military intelligence operations. Computing
| technology after all is a weapon of mass destruction and the
| peaceful are being punished for the non peaceful. It is too
| dangerous for governments around the world to allow individuals
| to posses the immense power of computing technology. Call me
| chicken little but we are witnessing the end of publicly
| available private general computing. Market changes influencing
| cost effectiveness analysis to favor public cloud is a deliberate
| goal to secure national critical infrastructure. I also think
| this coincides with the limits of MOSFET scaling and RISC-V
| permissive licensing. My only credentials for this is 15+ years
| working in fintech I&O for a US Fortune 500 company.
| stoltzmann wrote:
| It certainly feels like we are being squeezed from all sides. I
| think the push to require ID verification for websites is also
| part of the plot - it all feels too coordinated, like
| governments all over the world have the same exact agenda to
| destroy our privacy. At some point you will have to verify your
| ID to use any computer system, and it will act just as a
| terminal to the cloud.
|
| I guess we will get the future that was seen in Sun
| Microsystems with their Ray thin clients after all, but in a
| way that will provide complete control over population rather
| than mobility.
|
| What is in cards for us is complete slavery to digital systems.
| scottLobster wrote:
| Don't worry, on the other side of the AI bubble pop the market
| will be flooded with used DDR5 sticks from unprofitable
| datacenters.
| GlitchInstitute wrote:
| MacBooks will kill the market because of these memory price hikes
| faefox wrote:
| Late-stage capitalism in action. We have companies that are so
| insanely rich (despite losing equally insane amounts of money)
| that they can single-handedly corner worldwide markets for
| critical components in a brazen attempt to hurt the competition,
| and nobody will do a single thing about it.
| jjkaczor wrote:
| Placed an order from Lenovo on November 21st - 96gb of RAM in
| that machine, it still hasn't shipped yet - am wondering if/when
| they will try to "renegotiate" the deal... (supposed arrival date
| on that system is 01/02/2026)
| pmdr wrote:
| Ah yes, the abundance ushered in by the "AI era" is overwhelming
| us all.
|
| Is anyone's salary here projected to go up 53% in 2026?
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