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Memory that doesn't exist yet has been bought with money that may never exist to supply datacentres that haven't been built to serve demand that isn't there.
The solution is surprisingly simple:
"Sorry, I can't use your online services. My electronics died. Oh well." ๐คทโโ๏ธ
Or we hunt them down
So be it, then... We ride at dawn.
A 5 year DRAM shortage is pretty hard to imagine. I have to suspect that's a projection that assumes no AI bubble popping (which given how insanely over-leveraged basically every company involved in the bubble is, its inevitable. They're literally spending more building these datacenters than they can ever dream of recouping once built!) The last DRAM shortage (around 2017-2019 by memory) was only really bad for about a year or so, getting gradually better until it became an absolute glut of DRAM supply that lasted until...well about 3 months ago. $60 per terabyte of SSD storage was glorious, and hopefully I can afford to benefit from the next DRAM glut in 2-5 years
Saw this in the news. They're trying really hard to stack the federal reserve board and send interest rates back down to financial crisis/pandemic levels. AI bubble can have some leg room if interest rates tank
Honestly interest rates dropping might be ultimately be a good thing. The job market is so tight and most recession indicators have already been blazing. I doubt they'll do the same hard drop they did in Q2 of 2020, but I do think more aggressive rate cuts might alleviate a lot of the burden consumers (especially young adults and anyone unfortunate enough to have been/be jobless over the last couple of years) have been feeling. A big chunk of the inflation consumers were seeing on goods in 2024 was just companies making opportunistic price increases, as evidenced by the heavily advertised price drops afterwards.
Additionally there is the statistic that nearly 50% of all retail spending in the United States is made by the top 10% of earners which is a heck of a dangerous tightrope for the economy. I do think that's the other shoe waiting to drop right this second. If the wealthier Americans get spooked and start to pull back their spending this economy is going to tumble
The AI bubble will pop long before then, and everyone will have more RAM and GPUs than they know what to do with.
looks at housing bubble "............. god i hope you're right"
As much as private equity wants to think it is, housing is not a commodity like DRAM is.
Housing always has a base value in that people always need places to live, so it's price is sticky. The need for DRAM could disappear overnight if it so happened that way.
For the dram unfortunately won't be possible to use it in the consumer space, at least not in the current form. Hbm is really server stuff, and as is, you cannot repurpose it. As for the GPUs, maybe they can be used for the consumer space but I am not entirely sure the specs would be wise to use it at home, since they need some very serious cooling capabilities, as well electricity consumption. Biggest winners of this pop in my opinion would be anyone who need cheap server rack stuff.
The RAM for 2026-2031 hasn't been produced. It's the production capacity that's been bought out.
If the AI bubble bursts, the manufacturing can be reassigned.
Part of it is not finished DRAM that was sold yet, it's wafer capacity at the factory.
Sam Altman has promised orders for a kazillion wafers that don't exist yet. It's been argued this is less legitimate demand and more an effort to crimp the scaling ambitions of other competitors.
If his cheque bounces early on, the manufacturers are likely to reassign his slots to other buyers.
The manufacturers are taking a fair bit of risk though. If they aren't getting paid before work starts, and the bubble pops in the middle, thry could end up with a lot of (partially or fully) finished wafers that they can't just slice up and sell to Corsair and G.Skill.
You are not wrong about the reallocation part. However, if you see the actions from micron (fuck you micron BTW), they are going all in and having a shit storm in PR on the consumer side. If they are taking these risks without proper assurances, then they are utterly deranged
Hbm is really server stuff, and as is, you cannot repurpose it
I mean, you and I can't, but memory manufacturers? They'll find a way.
This cyber enron circlejerk wont last that long
The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
Oh no, I saw this coming and bought RAM at the first hike. I'm good for 8 more years. This doesnt help everyone else tho.
Totally stealing Cyber Enron
Just not gonna buy any new games then.
Get caught up on that game queue.
This is for one purpose if it's true: To force consumers to rent everything, including their computer, so they can be surveilled.
Don't use GeForce NOW, even if there's a Linux client in the works, because it's surveilled too.
Surveillance isn't the reason, it's a larger and more consistent profit margin.
I'm sorry, the game streaming platform can't be bothered to make a client for Linux??
They do and have for a while.
Fortunately I'm currently I'm happy with what I have. I think I'll oulast this.
I thought the same until one ram stick died this week, it's apparently now $1200 for a replacement
Ouch. Never had memory fail on me before *fingers crossed.
I wouldn't be surprised to see some foundries retooling to produce DRAM in less than five years.
Thank god I never sold my old desktops.
I have a i5-3470 with 16gb, i7-8700 with 16 gb, a steamdeck, and recently bought an m4 air.
Iโm only gaming on the steamdeck, and those other computers are used for home server stuff.
In 5 years china is going to ramp up their domestic production, so they'll have cheap RAM while we don't
They'll sell it.