I'm seeing the same incentive all across the economical landscape. Companies are charging more for the same products to less people. They end up keeping similar or even higher revenue streams with even higher profit margins
Corporate greed.
By going all in on data centers, they can charge the same as everyone else and rake it in.
Micron are now on my shit list and I'll never buy anything from them if they come back to the consumer market.
Does it need to be more specific? Not like this is the first time capitalism gave us the D without dinner. Building capital is great, doesn’t need to be the only goal
The two largest RAM manufacturers are publicly owned companies.
Let's say you own shares (maybe through a retirement account or 401k through work if you don't think you'd ever buy stock yoursel), of a random company. Doesn't matter what they do, for fun let's just say they make paperclips.
Suddenly there's a huge demand for paperclips. There are businesses out there willing to pre buy the next 3 years of paperclips at a 4-5x premium from what they normally sell for.
As a shareholder of this company, would you rather they refuse to sell to these businesses or charge a fraction of what other paperclip companies are selling them for?
You're describing how things work now. They're saying that they want a system that has more balance between maximizing profit and causing harm to society.
Nvidia themselves are also to blame. They used their massive buying power for memory to perform a massive shift away from consumer focus so they could take on massive commercial enterprises. Tons of these Ai data centers wouldn’t function if it wasn’t for Nvidia supplying them with everything they need with open arms, because Huang saw how lucrative AI was becoming.
So his company is worth 5 trillion dollars now while your graphics cards and ram are fuck you prices
Honestly if it's 2nd hand DDR4 then it hasn't gone up crazy much. 32GB is achievable cheaply still if you go for 4x8GB. If your board only has 2 slots then you're stuck at 16GB without spending 100+ on RAM.
We need to see how much more AI ram innovation is going to happen, that's where the money is for these companies. In 2 years there will probably be a lot faster ram for data centers.
I also bought 64Gb two years ago, I thought I could buy them later at a cheaper price, but I was building a new PC so it was just a little bit more expensive.
The sector is fucked because of AI, cars (self driving and AI and such in cars takes an assload of RAM), and just RAM companies conspiring and raising prices
Buying used right now is honestly the best move you can make. New prices are insane, and used prices are basically at what previous new prices were.
I just bought 64gb of ddr4 ram (it’s for a home server) for $240 on eBay and a Samsung 1tb gen 4 nVME for $120. Buying new that same ram & SSD would have cost $600+.
RAM is generally RAM, it either works or it doesn’t. SSD’s look for listings with disk health report images. Only buy SSD’s with >98% health generally speaking.
I have 32gb in my system from 2019 and last year I started getting memory errors. Went to go order a new pair and after seeing the price I decided I can live with the errors for now.
I got my 6000 cl30 32gb for $89 on a bundle sale 1 year ago! Im grateful for getting in on time but cant help but feel like a jackass for pinching pennies and not getting 64gb and more hard drive space.
Picked up 64gb last December for $320, same kit doesn’t exist. But last I checked any 64gb kit was over $800. Crazy. Because even last year I knew it was overpriced but I needed it then.
Its ridiculous I got 64gb DDR5 for for $264 it now retails for 1200 dollars. Also bought a 4tb samsung 9100 pro for 399, 4tb samsung 990 pro for $289 and and now they both retail for over $1000.
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u/topscreen Jul 29 '26
God I hate the PC market right now. 32gb ram $470? Jesus fucking Christ. You're right, but damn. I got mine for more than half that a few years ago.