Samsung sells out of 2026 HBM4 supply as memory resurgence continues

Posted by snowfordessert@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 55 comments

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jv9mmm@reddit

With mass production of HBM, the R&D and scale will bring the cost down and with time we will see it in consumer products.

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shawman123@reddit

No chance while the AI chips are gobbling them now. Price will probably go up in the short term as there is no capacity.

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Wait_for_BM@reddit

It is not as simple as drop in replacement like soldering down a BGA on a PCB for regular memory.

While It might bring down the cost of the HBM. BUT you are still paying for the cost of silicon substrate, HBM + SoC chiplets bonding process and the SoC have to be customized for the HBM.

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jv9mmm@reddit

Of course, and all these thing will come down in price the more we build and research them.

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Let me tell you a story from my past. Years ago I worked for a big company which had a special ASIC chipset inhouse designed that use specialized memory from the big 3 vendors. We thought we were safe, but all 3 of them failed to meet their spec and worst of all decided later to drop out of the market just when the bubble burst. We did all we can to OC the memory, but can't do anything about the EOL. Well the bubble burst and I guess in the end it really doesn't matter.

The moral of the story is to not tie your product to some propriety memory if it is possible. Commercial market do not have the big budget to cushion the failure or sudden supply chain disaster. You'll ended up with the huge cost in $$$ and time to redesign an SoC should the parts become hard to find for some reason.

e.g. Intel Optane is a great product, but you are SOL if you had it designed in.

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thedataking@reddit

HBM4 is standardized by JEDEC. Here is the spec https://www.jedec.org/standards-documents/docs/jesd270-4

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pwreit2027@reddit

HBM memory isn't going anywhere, what's your analogy got to do with this? Optane had two vendors selling it and was never sold out a year in advance. Optane solved problems that not many cared about . HBM memory is needed for massive AI, and AI is just started. So no, you're wrong on many levels. HBM will be used more and more,

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Zealousideal_Run1643@reddit

No wonder we are having DRAM shortage

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Mottaman@reddit

I know I didnt need it... but i went for 64GB with my build a couple weeks ago bc it was only $240 and I didnt know what things would look like in a couple years. Just 2 weeks later, the same memory in 32GB kits are that price

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edin202@reddit

Prices rise to fall on Black Friday

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jenny_905@reddit

Good decision and you bought at the right time, doesn't look like ram prices are going to drop to normal levels again for a while.

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LingonberryGreen8881@reddit

People investing in Nvidia, AMD, etc are wrongheaded IMO.
The bottleneck is swiftly becoming fabrication and not engineering. Everyone and their dog seems to be moving to proprietary chips to sidestep Nvidia's large markup. The value of the actual fabs like TSMC, Samsung, Intel, Micron, etc are going to skyrocket in the next five years. Fabs can't just be built overnight so demand can significantly outstrip supply.

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bryf50@reddit

Thing is NVIDIA is a well run company. They aren't going to sit by and do nothing. And the main thing they're doing now is insane level of vertical integration that no one else is close to yet. It's a package of cutting edge Nvidia GPUs, Nvidia CPX GPUs, Nvidia CPUs, NVLINK Switches, Nvidia Ethernet/Infiniband NICS, Nvidia Photonic Switches, Nvidia DPUs, and then the entire software stack that runs on top of all that. Who's even close to that right now?

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hackenclaw@reddit

I am actually surprise the multiple billion/trillion companies each are trying to craft their own proprietary path. None of them actually think of joining force working together to complete with Nvidia, which is the only viable way to beat Nvidia. lol

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edin202@reddit

Deals are made under the table = we won't fulfill your chip order if you're a competitor

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twothreetoo@reddit

Nvidia doesn't package anything; that's other companies too. Software is just more engineering. Everything Nvidia does is ones and zeros. Just plans and IP. The entire company could be replaced by a sufficiently advanced fleet of AI agents.

Their Price/Earnings ratio is currently 57 Years. They have nothing physical that can help them endure the AI that will make them redundant in just 5 years.

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snowfordessert@reddit (OP)

I think so too.

Broadcom is going to become the most valuable over the long term imo.

If Samsung's logic dies get better, that'll also steal NVIDIA's thunder, because more and more computing will be performed by the HBM itself in the future. That's why they are keeping up the investments into Foundry, even at a loss.

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greenndreams@reddit

Isn't Broadcom in a similar spot as Nvidia? being a RF fabless company like Qualcomm?

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SteakandChickenMan@reddit

Broadcom isn’t technically fabless - they make their own RF filters in Fort Collins

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snowfordessert@reddit (OP)

Broadcom will make custom chips

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new-ashen-one@reddit

Yep, your take is spot on. If fabrication has been tight already, the next upcoming years it will be even more constrained, since more hyperscalers are doing there custom solutions

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theRealtechnofuzz@reddit

people like should I wait 2 months to buy ram? No! Buy now or you will not be able to buy it. I wanted 64gb of ram. It's $500 now for a decent kit. I don't absolutely need it, so I can wait. But I guarantee ram prices won't normalize until mid 2027.

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SoilMassive6850@reddit

Who cares about prices or needs to afford things.. Modern problems need shitty solutions, so just finance it!

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Different_Return_543@reddit

Believe it or not, but in a lot of countries people most the things by financing it with zero interest rates and they manage to make their payments in time.

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Sopel97@reddit

if you have to finance something like RAM you can't afford it

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Different_Return_543@reddit

I know the context of the comment chain, but as I said people not in rich countries have only option to buy things by financing and it's not only computer compononents.

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Sopel97@reddit

financing does not make you afford something

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floralshoppeh@reddit

if you have to finance it you can't actually afford it

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InevitableSherbert36@reddit

It's $500 now for a decent kit.

What qualifies as decent? You can still buy 64 GB of DDR5-6000 CL30 RAM for under $300.

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az226@reddit

Rdimm. AI servers don’t need no udimm.

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CyriousLordofDerp@reddit

RDIMMs use the same base ICs as UDIMMs. They just have more circuitry between the memory ICs and the memory controllers.

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az226@reddit

And yet there is a big difference in premium. Because again. AI servers need RDIMM.

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parentskeepfindingme@reddit

Yes, but the amount needed reduces the total amount of IC's, leading to a shortage of consumer products.

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az226@reddit

Correct.

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58696384896898676493@reddit

Those deals are Amazon links, so I would buy now before they go up. Just look at the exact same kits on Newegg, they're like $100 more. Those Amazon links are bound to go up once they order more stock.

Anecdotally, I just picked up 2x48 GB RAM for $260 a few days ago, the exact same kit 24 hours later is now $400 on Amazon. Going up $140 in 24 hours is crazy.

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nokei@reddit

Amazons a decent mix of old listings out of stock lists and the kind of people who bought up all the toilet paper and hand sanitizer to try and resell when covid hit.

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ghostsilver@reddit

shh, let him hyperbole my dude

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Nvidiuh@reddit

The kit of RAM I purchased back in April for an introductory price of $214.99 is now $500, though I'd place it well above "decent" with the specs it has.

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theRealtechnofuzz@reddit

the kingston is a decent price atm, but it says -ships in 2 to 4 weeks- and ngl those ram sticks are ugly... I dont even care if it has RGB or not. i just want 6000 cl30...

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InevitableSherbert36@reddit

This plain black kit for $296 ships in about a week and has 6000 CL30 EXPO and XMP profiles.

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wickedplayer494@reddit

Meanwhile, to those unaware of the DRAM supply and demand racket, I say: first time?

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theRealtechnofuzz@reddit

this is also an issue, but other companies have also bought out the supply of samsung/hynix hbm until 2027. I guarantee they are making BUCKETS of money on these.

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RedTuesdayMusic@reddit

I bought 2x48GB DDR5 6000/30 for less than that two months ago... Insane

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ThankGodImBipolar@reddit

I figured I could pick a nice time to upgrade to a DDR5 platform from my 64GB of DDR4 but I feel like I might be waiting for DDR6 now. I think I could live with 32GB but I’m not super interested in downgrading and dealing with any potential consequences.

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comperr@reddit

I just built a system with 2x48GB 6800MT/s DDR5 i overclocked to 7200MT/s. Also upgraded my old 8x8GB 3200 DDR4 build to 8x16GB 3600. What's the struggle in your decision making process?

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ThankGodImBipolar@reddit

Basically, a not terrible 96GB DDR5 kit is 2-3x what I spent on 64GB of DDR4, and I have too much respect for my money/not enough reason to upgrade to spend it on that at this point. Especially because I know the DDR5 kit will be cheap again one day.

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comperr@reddit

Not sure what prices are now. I paid $350? For the 96GB kit. I paid $400 for the 8x8GB DDR4 in 2018 and $331 for 8x16GB this year for the 128GB DDR4 kit. Got Gskil trident z royal this time around. Corsair sucks in my experience. Degraded and the RGB burned out LOL

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Dpek1234@reddit

Same

Although my pc has 16 gb I think i will wait for am6

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CPU and GPU (intel ultra cpu ones are dropped) are seems same price, but this shitty rams price are increased.

Same on DDR4 by the way.

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Capable-Silver-7436@reddit

ddr4 has ended production so that one isnt the surprising part