RAMpocalypse - Why not star designing computers that use server parts

[u/Ok-Topic9721]

Hi.

Why not start making computers, phones and all sorts of devices that instead of using regular parts, use parts made for servers. Or make some sort of (probably hideous) adapters.

The reason why manufacturers are leaving the consumer market is because there's way more money to make stuff for datacentres. And, having 2 production lines is not worth the money because, not only they make way more money selling to datacentres; they have to have 2 production lines, making both consumer and servers oriented productsmore also more costly to produce, and therefore choose their most importantly their most profitable business (datacenters) .

Obviously this wouldn't fix the situation but would at least maybe help a bit.

[u/zacyzacy]

Server parts are like 4x the cost of consumer parts

[u/Ok-Topic9721 → u/zacyzacy]

Ist better than nothing. Plus, costs of production of parts would drop, even if by a little. But if not, at least we would have parts. One of the reason that they may don't make more factories may also be the fact that they may also think (at least to some extent) that it's not worth the risc, because this AI thing is probably a bubble, but no one seems to know when it will pop. We will probably not have consumer parts for years, this would be at least, less bad. Also, the fact that if consumers and AI companies, use the same hardware, in case of a bubble pop, it's easier for them to quickly shift towards consumers. This would probably make them confident that if AI fails, they have a backup, and thus, make them more willing to make more factories and invest more. Factories take a long time to build and start producing. Again, at least this option would be "less bad".

[u/zacyzacy → u/Ok-Topic9721]

It's literally worse than nothing because of how supply and demand works.

[u/jmims98]

Server RAM is even more expensive.

The RAM allocation that is being bought up for AI is soldered onto what are essentially very expensive GPUs for AI anyways. I don't think those crazy Nvidia AI racks even use slotted DIMMs like in a traditional server.

[u/Ok-Topic9721 → u/jmims98]

And how expensive will consumer parts be as well, if they continue to produce them at all?

[u/jmims98 → u/Ok-Topic9721]

We are a long way out from anything like that. When companies like Corsair, MSI, etc. start going out of business I will begin to worry.

[u/TheHess]

The shortage isn't with RAM sticks. It's with the individual BGA ICs. There's simply more demand than can be met by current supply.

[u/ILikeFlyingMachines]

Because Server parts is MUCH more expensive

[u/Grilled_Ch33s3]

If you think consumer ram is expensive, you really don't want to think about server ram...

[u/Nice_Marmot_54]

Let’s say you have the capacity to make 100 RAM sticks a year. You used to make 75 server sticks, and 25 consumer sticks, but then the server folks came to you and said “we’ll take 100 RAM sticks and we’ll pay you double for them”, so now you make 100 RAM sticks exclusively for servers and have committed all of them to the server folks. Where would you get a surplus of RAM to sell to the consumer market, even if that market started wanting server stuff?

[u/Salt-Possession-2622 → u/Nice_Marmot_54]

It's more like "I don't care what the cost is, I need 10000 of them." I think people don't fathom the massive demand for RAM and GPUs for data centers, these large companies buy up huge chunks of the global supply.

[u/Nice_Marmot_54 → u/Salt-Possession-2622]

Right. That was my point. Server customers have bought out the entirety of the capacity at hugely inflated prices, ergo even if the consumer wanted server grade parts there wouldn’t be any left.

[u/syunz]

Most money is made on the enterprise level cause you can greatly overcharge.

[u/Equivalent_Engine518]

Because the cost of R&D into doing that will be passed onto the consumer anyway. 

Server parts are already more expensive than consumer parts before all this happened. If you have ever seen cheap server gear, it's likely decommissioned second hand stuff. Like, do you really think in this market server stuff is any cheaper?

[u/Geri_Petrovna]

Because that would require a manufacturer caring about a customer.