Post #1436774
2026-04-19 23:22 UTC
Replies (24)
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@maximum_mew@indieweb.social 2026-04-19 23:42
@clive My son has been tracking the price increases and had to decide whether to pillage the RAM out of an old computer before getting rid of it. Given the astronomical prices, it was a no-brainer to take it out and add it to his other computer.
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@beep@follow.ethanmarcotte.com 2026-04-19 23:57
@clive Just the most ridiculous timeline.
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@gcvsa@mstdn.plus 2026-04-20 00:35
@clive Actually 7-8 months, as the prices were flat until October 2025, when OpenAI announced thier attempt to corner the market on RAM wafers. https://medium.com/@mastinbailey/the-letter-that-moved-a-market-95a249dd7b3b
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@marisa@mastodon.scot 2026-04-20 00:38
@clive yikes. We saw an NPR news clip about this.... glad I replace my laptop last year, but I still use an iPhone 10 🫠
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@Lyle@cville.online 2026-04-20 00:46
@clive Best I can tell, the largest and most powerful companies have locked in much more reasonable pricing. We are scrambling for scraps.
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@seanmiddleditch@hachyderm.io 2026-04-20 01:04
@clive Just ask ChatGPT to download some more RAM for you. /s
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@Juleon5456@neuromatch.social 2026-04-20 01:10
@clive I have recently been stockpiling RAM, SSDs and any other hardware I can salvage from computer designated for recycling at the institution I work at. The prices of laptops for faculty and student laptop fleets have already been noticeably increasing, and the problem is only made worse by the fact that a large portion of computers in labs and laptop fleets are unable to operate on Windows 11 due to their lack of a TPM chip, despite being otherwise perfectly good machines. I'm hopeful that my collection of salvaged components will enable us to keep some of our machines running longer, but I doubt this problem will get better anytime soon.
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@jjbaumgartner@infosec.exchange 2026-04-20 01:27
@clive We've been seeing server RAM prices be even worse. Currently, our HPe prices are ~$5250 for 1 @ 64 Gb DDR5, and ~$12850 for 1 @ 128 Gb DDR5. We normally do 16 @ 64 Gb sticks, that's $84000 just for the RAM. It's untenable. I have no idea how we're going to be migrating our datacenters in the next couple years.
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@GreatBigTable@mastodon.social 2026-04-20 01:30
@clive I just bought a laptop for a personal project that would have been around $600 a year ago. It was $1000 now. I figured if I didn't jump at this price, it would been completely outside my price range in another six months.
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@Waldorf@infosec.exchange 2026-04-20 01:32
@clive Clive not just for RAM. The prices for SSD's have gone up the same way. Obviously the same problem.
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@MIfoodie@social.vivaldi.net 2026-04-20 01:54
@clive I have to buy a laptop for college within a year and unfortunately I’ll need something quite a bit more then a Chromebook or MacBook neo… This is not a good time for me :(
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@bob_zim@infosec.exchange 2026-04-20 03:31
@clive All due to RAM manufacturers believing non-binding letters of intent from a lying liar who is well-known for telling lies. And it seems like the big VRAM orders they reoriented to fill aren’t happening, so in a few months there will be tons of unsold VRAM chips which aren’t useful for main memory. Hopefully the manufacturers have already started pivoting back to normal DDR4 and DDR5.
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@mtnrbq65@social.vivaldi.net 2026-04-20 03:48
@clive Anyone taking bets as to whether he had a side operation stockpiling RAM before this was announced? Is memory tradeable as a commodity like pork belly futures?
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@yertle@mastodon.cloud 2026-04-20 03:50
@clive @briankrebs I bought 64GB DDR5 in Nov 2024 for $180, and now it’s $1000
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@morgan@sfba.social 2026-04-20 04:17
@clive https://social.coop/@cwebber/116421159289416290
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@Npars01@mstdn.social 2026-04-20 04:27
@clive AI billionaires cornering markets & creating profitable chokepoints to price gouge. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-02-15/rampant-ai-demand-for-memory-is-fueling-a-growing-chip-crisis https://www.ubergizmo.com/2026/04/apple-cornering-mobile-dram/
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@michal@toot.kottman.xyz 2026-04-20 04:45
@clive Sometimes even more rapidly (3 month span) Imagine us waiting for a "good deal" for upgrade, the bitter surprise... https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/
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@kaaswe@swecyb.com 2026-04-20 05:06
@clive Thank you AI datacenters for that
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@Bot4Sale@fairdinkum.one 2026-04-20 07:20
@clive RAm adjacent (mostly SSD's, GPU's) also hit.
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@adrianmorales@ieji.de 2026-04-20 07:38
@clive Hopefully, prices will decrease once the AI bubble pops. 🪡 🫧 🤖
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@gkrnours@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-04-20 08:29
@clive it went 4X in less than a month. Sam announced he grabbed 40% of all ram raw material, everything went sold out, like story of ram vendor calling their customer to buy the ram back. Then went ram was back in stock at hugely inflated price. I heard they might have canceled the deal, which should reduce pressure on ram price?
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@RandomOxen@hachyderm.io 2026-04-20 13:16
@clive Do the datacenters only want DDR5? Has older DDR4 RAM also increased in price?
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@betaphish@infosec.exchange 2026-04-20 13:43
@clive literally built my stuff around the same time and I must say I couldn’t be more grateful for the timing we had haha
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@CliffsEsport@mastodon.social 2026-04-20 13:47
@clive yep, DDR3 now is about the price DDR4 was last summer. I bought 2x16 of Crucial DDR4 3200 last summer for my primary Linux laptop and wish I would have bought 2x32 GB now, because I'd just sell it and live with some of the 2x8 I have sitting around.