Entry-level PC market to ‘disappear’ by 2028 — rising memory prices pile more strain on consumer PC market
Posted by imaginary_num6er@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 316 comments
Abalone_Antique@reddit
It's funny how things change. PC gaming was niche, exploded in popularity, and will become niche again. Laptops were fantastic value, until they weren't. And now they may be the best upcoming deals on hardware. I don't like where things are headed, personally. But I do have this underlying amusement to know that things will never stay the same, and it's interesting to see where we will end up going.
georgesclemenceau@reddit
Unless they have a lot of stock, which they haven't, consoles are gonna have the same problem as they has the same material requirement than a computer. There is already news about next gen being delayed because of that
Usernametaken1121@reddit
Consoles will be fine. The only issue with consoles are the lack of games. Someone will come out with a system seller as they have for the previous 8 generations, and people will buy consoles. They will always be cheaper and more convenient than PC.
georgesclemenceau@reddit
Components prices are still gonna be a problem for consoles to be at a reasonable price
Usernametaken1121@reddit
What does it matter if the alternative (PC) is 2x the price for comparable performance. Consoles will always be cheaper due their purpose built function and uniformity in hardware.
2CommaNoob@reddit
Yep; PC gaming is going back to niche and only for well off folks. I predict we will see $800-1000 consoles and $100 games as the new norm in the next gen. The underlying components have increase drastically and costs will have to be spread around.
I really think hardware and hardware integrators are in for a world of hurt. The console markers, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Asus, Apple, Samsung will be hurting. We are going to test just how far people will pay for a smartphone.
The makers of the underlying components will be the ones reaping the benefits.
Framed-Photo@reddit
AI slopbots don't have users if people can't afford devices, so I don't really get how any of this is ever supposed to work. Companies just eat up all the resources for years to sell their currently all free products to consumers that don't even have devices with which to consume said product? Then they start paying out the ass for the product that they still can't afford because the device they need for that product tripled in price?
These inflated prices cannot last forever, something is going to budge lol.
kwirky88@reddit
This could have been a golden age of software building but instead the true stripes of investors have shown, companies decided to compete on cost reduction instead of value delivery.
Usernametaken1121@reddit
Golden age of hardware is over. There is no longer the jumps gen to gen we've grown fat on over the last 30 years. Now it's a rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic. Only so many RGB you can put on a case. Watch, thickness of cases will go down, costs will be cut in any way possible. If you're looking at something, now is the time to buy it ,it's only going to get worse.
MahatmaAbbA@reddit
Users aren’t a problem, most users don’t need anything more powerful than a smartphone or tablet. In the US, these companies can’t even turn on their stock of components. It’s all to pump nvidia/tech stocks so the entire market doesn’t crash. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-cant-source-enough-electricity-164121327.html
TK3600@reddit
NVDA holder here where is my pump?
MahatmaAbbA@reddit
The “pump” is really more like not crashing. Better be a 2 year old purchase. 10% difference week to week is v nice
Framed-Photo@reddit
That's part of what I'm saying though: if prices of cheap devices like smartphones or tablets go up (because prices of storage/ram in them go up, already has started happening) then people can very much get priced out of owning devices that can even access a lot of these services reliably lol.
Berkut22@reddit
The specs will go down to keep them cheap. Apple/Samsung have already stated their next flagship models will have less ram than current ones.
smarlitos_@reddit
You sure? The new 17e has 8GB of ram
Maybe you mean the upcoming Pro phones, who knows
I’m sure they can make 12GB ram work, 8GB would be crazy
Framed-Photo@reddit
But that can only go so far. Right now even if they cut the amount of ram in half for all models it'll still cost more than what the original amount did a year ago. So prices will go up regardless, while devices get worse, and at the low end where margins are basically non-existent they'll have no choice but to drastically raise prices eventually.
If they cut things down enough to actually fully offset all these price hikes, we're gonna have flagship devices with 2gb of ram and 32gb of storage at this rate lol. And while I'm sure manufacturers would love to do that, modern OS's would have to be pretty heavily modified to run well in those conditions.
aReasonableStick@reddit
Yep, 2GB of RAM for a smart phone is not enough to run an operating system and then everything else. I have a phone that has just that, the OS is Android Go and it still uses most of the RAM. It cant multitask, as in you cant have more than 2 things open at once (with 1 in the background) because it'll either chug along or it'll remove itself. And every few hours you have to empty the cache and RAM.
Even then the internet is so heavy on resources with all the dynamic websites, tracking cookies, adverts the works that with 2GB of RAM in a phone websites also chug and sometimes fail to load.
techno156@reddit
Software is also still growing in demand. The last thing the companies need is customers dropping the devices because they're slow/junk, on account of the weak hardware no longer keeping up with what the software demands.
Strict_Research3518@reddit
Which is crazy.. because we actually need MORE ram, gpu, cpu, etc to run the growing llm/ai stuff.. unless the goal is always on network access and API costs are going to go WAY down.. but I doubt that. Most AI company's are hedging on more customers.. but they have to raise prices to start turning profits.. which will price out most consumers, especially if they need to spend tons more for a device capable of using/consuming said APIs, AIs, etc.
Yebi@reddit
Smartphones are a necessity these days. People might start going for cheaper or older ones, but they're not gonna do without
Framed-Photo@reddit
Right, and older/shittier/cheaper devices are going to be far worse even at basic things like web browsing, and that's even assuming they can keep the baseline price of a phone the same, which given these price hikes I highly doubt they can. Which means even cheap devices get far more expensive, doubly so because they had such low margins there's no manufacturer in their right mind that's going to to waste their resources pumping out that stuff.
And all of that gets topped off with the eventual monetization of AI tools that has to happen. So consumers have to pay more, to get worse devices, and then have to pay more again to get these tools that they currently get for free? I just don't see how it works out in the way these companies want it to that's all.
bphase@reddit
Not really, they're more than adequate. You just get more luxury features by spending more, like better cameras and even more performance, better displays. Social media and AI use doesn't take much.
Seems likely. They'll cut other things before cutting those.
DoradoPulido2@reddit
You don't own the devices. You rent or make payments on them. This is the plan and it is already working. Most Americans for example make payments on their phone to a major cell service provider. They don't need to just go buy a device in full
bdoll1@reddit
You will own a thin client and be happy. The threat of consumer locally hosted AI was too much for the trillion dollar companies to allow.
Berkut22@reddit
Phones will still be ubiquitous, and lower powered or lower spec phone won't matter, because everything will run off 'the cloud' and requires only basic computing power.
This is likely by design.
Imperial_Bouncer@reddit
Thing is, phones are no longer low powered.
The chip in my iPhone 17 is technically faster than M1 Apple was putting in their laptops not that long ago. And that M1 crushed older Intel based MacBooks in terms of performance.
The only problem is probably power and cooling. The actual hardware of the chip is very capable. In an ideal world, we could probably just insert our phones into laptop shells as if they were docking stations and have awesome laptops.
Framed-Photo@reddit
They can only make things so low spec before they have a pretty drastic effect on the experience, and that's not even getting into how well selling the higher end devices are in places like the US.
Gonna be a pretty hard sell to get people buying phones with 1gb of ram in 2027 lol.
knowledgebass@reddit
This comment makes no sense. You can send http requests to an AI chatbot service from a toaster.
kkrko@reddit
Note that the report here is that it's entry-level devices that's taking the hit, so it's the 'toasters' that are disappearing
Framed-Photo@reddit
If the price of toasters quadruples over the course of a year, less people will be able to afford toasters, or to pay for the service that companies want to eventually charge money for on said toaster.
ie-redditor@reddit
Musk robots serving the mega rich.
No-Row-6397@reddit
Whatever the discussions and articles what I don’t see people talking is what will companies do when current components will start failing in about seven to ten years…
PCs, laptops, phones, conference call tech, etc.. if the situation continues all of these will become unbearable to upgrade or even find by then, for most small to mid size companies. And then the issue will eventually reach the large size corporations as well, specially given the scale of their needs.
Some say companies will resort to smaller remote processing based devices, but you’ll still need some minimal level of local processing and storage, which means you still need components.
It feels we are entering in a snake eating itself situation. I find it truly crazy that most people are not seeing this impending engineered crisis coming in..
Hour_Firefighter_707@reddit
Ironically, laptops will soon be better value than desktops again. Or at least better value than the DIY desktop market
baloobah@reddit
HP has just put out their corporate price list. 30% increases accross the board.
2CommaNoob@reddit
That's crazy. I don't understand how all these price increases aren't going to affect the bottom lines of all these companies. Consumer spending is still 70% of the economy.
I was tempted to upgrade but I'm keeping my 5 year old cpu/mobo/ram and 3 year gpu for another 5 years. It's just too costly to upgrade for less than a 2-3x jump in performance.
WhimsicalSilliness@reddit
No fr, I was planning on upgrading my pc i built in 2020 but it just has to wait
andrewthesailor@reddit
Lenovo announced that laptop prices will rise this year as a response to ai-caused shortages.
CheesyHotDogPuff@reddit
I nabbed a Legion Pro 5 for a pretty decent price and it feels like I got the last chopper out of ‘nam
airtraq@reddit
Lenovo already has raised prices
Inevitable-Menu2998@reddit
And doubled delivery times
neyney10@reddit
Yes, but what about a second raise?
ghenriks@reddit
We are at a point where price increases happen every month or so
Over in the business computing subreddits there are regular posts about how there will be a significant price increase in say 45 days that is on top of the price increase already happening in 15 days
And quotes are now often only valid for say 2 weeks because prices are so volatile
airtraq@reddit
Why so many words when few will do?
DeliciousIncident@reddit
They already increased the price once in January. With how memory prices keep going up, we might see more increases.
shoppo24@reddit
And they gonna start limiting to 8gb
-CynicalPole-@reddit
How? Do laptops store and operate data in sky clouds instead of DRAM chips, lol?
techno156@reddit
Maybe manufacturing contracts? Since OEMs buy in bulk, and often by contract, they may be able to get parts cheaper compared to consumer.
-CynicalPole-@reddit
To some degree ofc, but certainly not nowhere close to our retail prices from year ago.
monocasa@reddit
For a short time people thought laptops and phones might be safer since they use LPDDR rather than regular DDR, but AI chips have started using LPDDR too.
Imperial_Bouncer@reddit
They aren’t using any DDR. They’re using HBM for AI and the problem is about manufacturing capacity being hoarded to make HBM instead of consumer memory.
monocasa@reddit
They're using everything they can put their hands on.
Equivalent_Spell_658@reddit
but andorid prepare desktop, you connect mouse keyboard and display to your phone, bum you've got computer!
glowshroom12@reddit
Remember during the crypto mining era when there was a time it was cheaper to buy a prebuilt and just put the parts in a better motherboard and case rather than buy a brand new GPU.
That was wild time.
Kosmos-World@reddit
Panther Lake coming in hot
Consistent-Place-225@reddit
Don't worry, you'll be able to pay monthly to do everything through a cloud based service instead! :)
Never mind the cost or obvious security and privacy risks. You, as the consumer, don't need to know about any of that. Just keep your wallet handy and they'll do the rest!
Amphax@reddit
Yeah that's the obvious push.
Could you imagine after working all day having to pay to sit in an hours-long queue to play your video game for the evening?
But don't worry, you can just doomscroll on your phone while you wait. And don't you dare leave your computer unattended because they are going to be serving up ads while you're in queue and if you don't interact with the ads quickly enough you'll lose your spot!
bogglingsnog@reddit
I'm so tired of blatantly evil things being allowed to occur with absolutely no leadership opposition.
Bern_Down_the_DNC@reddit
Time to get everyone you know to vote in the 2026 midterms
unsurejunior@reddit
What the fuck is that gonna solve lol this has been a problem 10 years in the making.
Governments don't solve supply chains unless we want to subsidize and green light permitting on new fabs and even then, it's a coin flip at best
michguy1037@reddit
Permit but don't subsidize. Let private companies build as many new fabs as they want.
BookPlacementProblem@reddit
Your conservatives have shown themselves to be vastly worse than your liberals.
Bought_Black_Hat_@reddit
And yet they've learned nothing.
Correctsmorons69@reddit
None of this has happened
Bern_Down_the_DNC@reddit
but many things have happened
NormanQuacks345@reddit
I can make up fantasies too if that’s what we’re doing
bogglingsnog@reddit
Oh right, it has to happen for it to be a valid fear. We shouldn't be afraid of death until we're already dead. Makes total sense. (/s)
railven@reddit
I know enough people to who do the following:
I don't get the issue. This is what the masses want.
jjm987@reddit
Cause people are poor and the cost is thru the roof
ProfessionalPrincipa@reddit
And don't even think about doing anything tricksy like looking at unauthorized operating systems or software programs. TPM and broken software stacks are for your own good.
Brickman759@reddit
Are you just making up things to complain about now? Cause none of that is true.
ProfessionalPrincipa@reddit
They're pushing TPM and ARM hard. What do you think the end game is?
Brickman759@reddit
ARM? Linux runs great on all different types of ARM processors.
TPM is just an encryption locker for your keys. Works on windows and linux. What does that have to do with using my own hardware?
ProfessionalPrincipa@reddit
Does it run on the consumer platforms they're attempting to force on to the market right now?
Really now?
Pristine_Lack_6935@reddit
Yeah kinda? vPro / amd Direct are really the backdoor(s) that're pretty much yelled out loud at this point
https://trustedcomputinggroup.org/resource/tpm-library-specification/
Brickman759@reddit
Which consumer platforms are we talking about? Because you can buy an ARM pc right now and run linux on it.
Am I mistaken about the TPM? Pretty sure that's what it does. Works on both Windows and linux too.
Consistent-Place-225@reddit
You been living under a rock or something?
skylinestar1986@reddit
Future self: you guys can afford thin mini client?
ea_man@reddit
They need training data, they want your data to feed their models, they don't want you to keep your stuff at home.
wintrmt3@reddit
Where will cloud providers get all that DRAM? A program running on a server won't use less than if it runs locally, and people need it in a nearby hosting for latency and will use it at the same peak times, so there are no DRAM savings. The capacity to manufacture it is simply not there, this is just a silly conspiracy theory, in reality everyone and everything is fucked.
GhostReddit@reddit
Servers have a much higher average utilization than home gamer PCs, that's where the savings come from.
wintrmt3@reddit
For the usual server workloads, that doesn't work when it's everyone's remote desktop.
Strazdas1@reddit
It does if you share resources.
Consistent-Place-225@reddit
I wish I had a buck for every time Reddit dismissed something as a silly conspiracy theory and then a started complaining about it once it's too late to change
I'm no business expert but my guess is that they'd get contracts going which would save some money and price the consumer out of the market even further
It's not even necessarily a conspiracy but you can bet your ass they'll take the opportunity if it's presented to them
wintrmt3@reddit
Nice goomba fallacy you got there, but you did not answer my question: where is the DRAM for the servers coming from? Manifacturing is maxed out, there simply isn't enough to move even a fraction of home computing to the cloud.
Amphax@reddit
They'll use the tax dollars of the middle class to do another infinite money glitch where both companies pump each other's stock values up and buy up all the DRAM with that.
Correct. So step 1 is to get people to stop doing things that require so many resources, like gaming. If everyone is limited to 30 minutes of gaming cloud time a night, the resources formerly used for that can be used for something more important instead, like data harvesting and pre-crime analysis.
There's some post floating around LinkedIn about we should limit ourselves to 720p so AI can have more resources.
Consistent-Place-225@reddit
I actually did answer it like directly below my first reply. I said they'd raise the subscription prices, buy up the supply and tell everybody who couldn't afford It "too bad" if it made them more than what they make now. A lot of people would pay anything if it's the only option and they can afford it
That's if production is actually capped out, but there's also a thing called "artificial scarcity" which companies use to raise the price and desirability of something by pretending it's rare or hard to make. Have you ever heard of the clothing brand supreme? They made a killing doing that a few years ago. It's not even really a conspiracy it's just a normal marketing tactic. You can find examples of it all over.
Skepticism is healthy, mindlessly defending companies who'd sell you out for a dollar, for free, from anon accounts on Reddit isn't. You gain nothing if it turns out you're right, and you very well might be, but it's sure gonna suck if you're not.
Just got up from a nap so sorry if this is a bit of a jumbled mess. My tinfoil hat must've fallen off while I was asleep
wintrmt3@reddit
Okay so more conspiracy theories, great.
Consistent-Place-225@reddit
Normal business practices are a conspiracy theory to you people? Bro there are a million fucking examples of people using artificial scarcity to boost their prices. Holy shit you're stupid
Snoo63@reddit
How often do you use all your DRAM?
Companies buy it in bulk (nice for the fabs), then piecemeal it out per demand (and how much each user is paying, ofc)
wintrmt3@reddit
All the time because it's the vfs cache.
Consistent-Place-225@reddit
The Poors will have to do without, like everything else. They would just raise the price and shrug their shoulders if you can't afford it
SituationSoap@reddit
Not everything is about screwing you over personally. If it's too expensive to create RAM for consumers it's also going to be too expensive to create that RAM for cloud-based gaming systems.
They're not doing this to push some cloud-based future, they're doing it because it's the only version of computing that's a growth sector right now.
Either this collapses and things change, or it's the new normal and we increase manufacturing capacity. It's not a conspiracy.
nupogodi@reddit
Not necessarily … with the cloud systems, utilization can be kept near 100%. Whereas you’re not using your local resources 100% of the time. IMO under constrained supply the unit economics do favour the centralized hardware.
Background_Baker9021@reddit
There is a point there. My home server idles 95% of the time. I've worked in large scale compute back in the past, and if they aren't redlining the hardware they aren't making money.
Consistent-Place-225@reddit
That's probably true but a lot of things are about screwing consumers over because collectively, they have a lot more money than just me
Shanix@reddit
Dude you're gonna love this new hardware that just dropped. It's called grass, and touching it is all the rage.
Consistent-Place-225@reddit
Soon as all this snow melts I might have to try that
Raknaren@reddit
does anyone want some DDR3 ?
PadyEos@reddit
Software company of 16000 employees here. I can't order any upgrade for laptop RAM for 3 months now.
AI will kills industries. Many you wouldn't even expect.
smarlitos_@reddit
Check eBay?
captainstormy@reddit
A company of 16000 employees has needs bigger than an eBay auction or two could fix.
smarlitos_@reddit
They sell lots and lots of RAM
Have you been on eBay? It’s literally an amalgamation of tons of e recyclers and shops around the US, plus ordinary people
captainstormy@reddit
Time is money. A company just wants to put in a single order from a supplier and be done with it. They also don't want to deal with getting all kinds of different parts. They also don't want to deal with tons of shipments.
They want to order 5000 of the same part and have it show up in one shipment.
smarlitos_@reddit
I mean it’s as easy as adding a few listings to cart and checking out
I doubt somebody will need 5000 sticks of laptop RAM. If they need to do that big of an overhaul on hardware, they’d probably just get different computers, that’s what most big companies do.
Most smaller companies could just add to cart several “lot of 8” “lot of 10” listings
if time is money, what a huge waste of time manually upgrading ram for tons of laptops.
Xeadriel@reddit
Bro you’re not making Sense. Just think about what you’re saying for two seconds
Snow-Day371@reddit
Sorry for being ignorant, but can't most companies just use older hardware and optimize more? Or are their budgets too tight even for that?
I would think a well managed company could work around this, even if it sucks.
righN@reddit
It creates more problems than it solves. Not one company will be developing new software or anything so that it works better with older devices. Also, older hardware gets worse support, so that also might create a security risk.
samuelazers@reddit
DDR4, now HDDs, everything doubled in price. With tax returns nowhere to go i wouldn't be surprised if peripherals start increasing in price too.
If i didn't already have a pc I'm not sure i would be building one. Maybe get a chrome book or something.
HTTPWizard@reddit
what is peripherals
airinato@reddit
Most people I know only buy accessories after buying something new.
Outside of mice because those are made to fall apart by every company it seems.
Winter-Rich797@reddit
Keychain mice still going strong, gamer mice falls apart in 1-6 months
ashvy@reddit
Datacenter mouse buying spree when??
seatux@reddit
Suppose it would be cheaper than buying all that remote KVM things for all the machines with no built in IPMI.
jhuang0@reddit
Space is at a premium in a data center.
seatux@reddit
I think those KVM things only have uses like hosting Macs for app specific cloud use. I do expect practically all the dedicated servers to be using some IPMI.
Space is also subjective, they seem to take easily in the hundreds of acres for the really big ones and still have amenities like on site office, parking, etc anyway. If they were maximizing space I put all ancillary functions on a dedicated building and just have building farms.
droptableadventures@reddit
HDDs are actually related, just a secondary effect.
Demand for SSD, and diversion of semiconductor fabrication has had a direct effect of increasing SSD prices.
As a result, things that were previously stored on SSD are now stored on HDD, thus increasing HDD demand just as rapidly.
ea_man@reddit
I mean even SD card are \~3x price on Aliexpress now.
I paid 8e for a 256GB last summer.
delta_p_delta_x@reddit
And needless to mention HDDs also have non-trivial amounts of DRAM or NAND flash (~1 GB) as cache, which independently makes the BOM of HDDs more expensive.
Lirael_Gold@reddit
What do you mean "start"
Corsair, Razer, Steelseries have been charging $120 for keyboards made in the same plants that make $40 keyboards for a decade now.
OverallPepper2@reddit
You’ll own nothing and like it.
FollowingFeisty5321@reddit
I never thought I'd be frothing over the opportunity to upgrade to a two-generation old not-quite-top desktop CPU and get another 5 years out of 32GB of DDR4...
HxcThor@reddit
I've been grabbing extra mice when they went on sale over the last couple of years. They stopped making them last year and now this.
No_Weight5486@reddit
It has already disappeared, I could tell you… the other day I went to buy a printer cartridge, and in the shop there was a guy picking up an office PC. I saw the component boxes: a 12400F, a PSU with no GPU, 32GB of DDR4… the case didn’t even have a single fan, and obviously the stock cooler. Do you know how much he paid for that office PC? 750 euros...
UltimateSlayer3001@reddit
The fear mongering and scare tactics are just absolutely endless. Yawn. Next.
ktaktb@reddit
Lol
This is a very real threat and a very real issue
You will not be able to locally do anything with data
Strazdas1@reddit
No it is not a very real threat. This is some crazy conspiracy theory that for got popular lately.
ktaktb@reddit
Prices quadrupled due to conspiracy theory on RAM and HDD??
The market proves you wrong here.
Strazdas1@reddit
Price quadrupled because demand exeeds supply, not some conspiracy to chance your consumption habits.
ktaktb@reddit
Lol
Exactly
Demand exceeds supply, the hdd and ram mfg have been clear that the consumer market is the lowest priority.
The idea that personal computers for normal folks is a fading reality IS NOT a conspiracy, it is a market reality.
Strazdas1@reddit
No, its not a market reality. Its a conspiracy. You can go and buy all consumer devices just fine right now, youll just pay the market price for it which is high now.
ktaktb@reddit
The collective you cannot do that bevause the prices are too high
How can you not hold two concepts in your mind at the same time?
People are exiting the market because they are priced out.
Saying that isnt saying there is a conspiracy.
It is saying that market forces and business decisions (with some risk) led to hdd mfg, ram mfg, and soon cpu mfg to promise the bulk of production to AI and data center projects.
This leaves a significantly reduced amount of product available for direct to individual consumer sales. Not only will prices increase because demand is greater than supply, many who would like these items will be priced out where they previously werent.
Additionally, under the laws of physics, the amount of product that is even for sale to individual consumers will be less that we have seen for years or decades and it is just physically impossible for the same number of home data servers or personal computers to be built.
Go look at rhardwareswap, rbuildapc rbuildapcsales rdatahoarder rlabsales
You will see that many enthusiastics are explaining, frankly, not hysterically, "hey, okay...I am priced out."
Strazdas1@reddit
The collective you can do that, the prices arent to such level where it becomes impossible to buy. If you are priced out because the top tier luxury memory got 200 dollars more expensive thats your own choice, you could just use regular tier memory instead, whose price increase wasnt that insane.
KinTharEl@reddit
I mean, what's the end game? Make laptops, desktops, and smartphones too expensive so nobody can afford them? And then what? Magick the data they are addicted to out of thin air? Force device subscriptions onto people who are already tired not owning anything? how are users going to interact with streaming services, AI subscriptions, music, SaaS platforms, or anything else digitally if these companies are going to make it impossible for people to own the device they need to connect to those same products and services?
People are still buying cars despite the same having been made massively more expensive. Car subscriptions also still exist, and they've done so badly that companies aren't sure how to proceed with them. I can guarantee you that people are more likely to pay more to own their personal computing devices than rent them. In today's climate, asking people to subscribe to a device may as well be putting a big red sticker with the word "SCAM" on it, because that is what it is.
Enterprises and Businesses may be the bigger money, but it all trickles down ultimately to the consumer. Everything services the individual in the end, and if enough individuals just put their foot down, the house of cards will collapse.
ktaktb@reddit
Everyone has chromebooks or thin clients.
None of your data or compute is local.
The business you are starting, the vacation you are planning, the book your are writing, those are allll being reviewed real time by the mag7
KinTharEl@reddit
And Apple, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and the suits and shareholders there are told to get fucked? I'll believe it when I see it.
msshammy@reddit
Oh? They gonna come take your hard drives away?
Fatigue-Error@reddit
It’s already getting expensive to buy new Hard Drives (and SSDs.) Your current one will eventually die, no one needs to take it from you.
Seriously, go price out a new build.
Pie_sky@reddit
A new decent build can be had for 1500 euro easily enough.
Chairman_Daniel@reddit
Is that meant to be cheap?
Strazdas1@reddit
Compared to other hobbies? 1500 for 5 years is cheap.
CallMeCygnus@reddit
Despite price volatility, hardware isn't becoming unobtainable. If my hard drive dies, I will simply buy another one. At the moment, yes, that will be at a higher price than normal. But that just means we're paying more, for a while.
The idea that we'll just stop buying the hardware we need is nonsense.
savagestranger@reddit
If the person can afford it. That's the point. Who said that they are pulling hardware from the shelves?
Strazdas1@reddit
If a person cannot afford to replace their failed HDD, they have far bigger financial problems than hardware affordability.
beenman500@reddit
People are very used to thinking pc hardware gets either cheaper yoy or better for the same price.
3+ years of neither of such things is going to be a real smack in the face of it turns out to be the case
kittymoo67@reddit
still not gonna be unobtanoium just more expensive.
cerberus6320@reddit
You misunderstand how vulnerable the computer supply chain actually is
FlyingBishop@reddit
If the Iran war draws on and China takes the opportunity to invade Taiwan, I don't know...
Plank_With_A_Nail_In@reddit
China is not invading Taiwan, the USA will stop bombing Iran in a couple of days.
ktaktb@reddit
Say your hard drive throws some smart codes in the next year
When you get with WD or Seagate or Samsung for a replacement...no, you are getting a refund, maybe even a prorated refund and you can put that 75 dollars toward the purchase of what was once a 250 dollar item that now sells for 1k.
I dont even think pc owners realize that if prices stay this elevated, any point of failure will require a big spend, you are not getting your broken parts exchanged for replacement, you are getting refunds lol
Consumers are so stupid until its too late
PoolOfLava@reddit
I'm buying 512gb used NVME right now for about $60 on ebay. Granted you won't be able to install many games on these but they work nonetheless.
TBH an actual protracted hardware shortage would be great for humanity right now because it would put the squeeze on the AI slop factories. Less consumer hardware = less consumers consuming AI slop.
Then we just let debt and opex take it's natural course to pop the AI bubble.
t3h@reddit
They cost less than that new a few months ago.
soggybiscuit93@reddit
They won't stay this elevated forever. The debate is for how long prices will stay this elevated.
Price increases have already started to slow down so it's fair to say we're at or near peak pricing. I expect by end of year they should start trending down - never back down to where they were, but low enough within a year or two that it won't be catastrophic if a part fails
Anybody who needs parts in the next 6 months (and statistically there are people who will) - it's going to be pretty rough for them.
oneirritatedboi@reddit
Not to mention that RAM is literally the least likely component to fail. If it works out of the box it’s almost guaranteed to work forever.
Cheerful_Champion@reddit
No, they are going to make it so buying first PC/laptop or maintaining one you already own will be expensive. HDD doesn't have infinite lifespan, neither does SSD
DependentOnIt@reddit
This is absolutely not fear mongering the mobile ecosystems are already locked down. You cannot access bank apps without running Google or Apple's software. You cannot run battlefield 6 without special DRM.
Within our lifetimes we may very well see the end of the personal computer as we know it.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
i_have_chosen_a_name@reddit
They can do whatever they want to, I hapilly play factorio for the next 20 years on my 2013 laptop.
XANTHICSCHISTOSOME@reddit
We need to break up every AI company. They are holding the US economy hostage for their ridiculous pyramid scheme to steal as much data as they can before the system collapses.
sushiesque@reddit
You will have nothing and you will like it and thank the AI overlords for their generosity
FeelingVanilla2594@reddit
Ah so we’re on The Ascent timeline now
smarlitos_@reddit
I think it depends what games you play
I quite enjoy using a high-end/newer CPU with an older used GPU, especially for esports, indie titles, and JRPGs.
I find the experience to be bad if you go with an old cpu for esports. Rather have old GPU not old cpu, basically.
Rn I have an i5-14600KF (14 core) with a 1660ti i got for cheap. I had an RTX 2060, but my friend needed it. For what I play, the 16-series card is fine.
Not into black myth wukong or anything needing ray tracing.
Since cpu’s are pretty much unchanged in price (except am4 x3D cpu’s because they’re out of production), I think it makes sense for people making a new build to get a recent cpu, an older GPU, 16-24GB ram or ddr4, 500-1TB ssd especially a used SATA, etc and just upgrade in the future.
There are ways to make things work. And mobos are cheaper bc sales are down.
FriendlyUserCalledKa@reddit
OpenAI will crash before 2028.
DoradoPulido2@reddit
That won't make any difference. Another corporation will take their place. You're cheering the fall of one company while the ground beneath your feet crumbles.
surg3on@reddit
Given Open AI is 40-50% of all AI spend I dont think someones going to step into those boots
Imperial_Bouncer@reddit
Google might. They actually have the money and most importantly, profits from other departments to back it up.
Over-Lettuce-7762@reddit
Google uses their own proprietary chips.
Strazdas1@reddit
Google uses everything. They use TPUs, they use Nvidia H line, they use AMD Instinct lline.
Over-Lettuce-7762@reddit
My understanding was they had an intrinsic advantage because they use their own chips and don't have to buy off the shelf consumer grade hardware. Everyone wants to use Nvidia h line I thought like even the Chinese are smuggling them.
Strazdas1@reddit
Their own chips have price advantage, they had performance disadvantage until very recently. Theres also a question of supply. Theres only so much TPUs google has, it takes time to make them, and they are the largest AI company now and will use everything they can get thier hands on for it.
Imperial_Bouncer@reddit
And how do they make these chips? Do they just appear out of thin air or are they made at the same fabs as everyone else’s?
Over-Lettuce-7762@reddit
Presumably nvidia isn't going to let them monopolize everything. It isn't the same dynamic when a company is buying off the shelf parts.
Strazdas1@reddit
They are nowhere even close to 40% of all AI.
ABotelho23@reddit
Entry-level means the cheapest it can be. The entry point will just be higher.
rddman@reddit
Right, there's also a entry-level superyacht market. It's just not very large because most people can not afford it.
Strazdas1@reddit
entry level yacts arent all that expensive actually. You probably paid more for your car.
rddman@reddit
"superyacht"
Strazdas1@reddit
What make a yacht super?
rddman@reddit
size, luxury, price. billionaire's toys
https://www.northropandjohnson.com/yachts-for-sale/superyachts
https://www.superyachtsmonaco.com/superyachts-for-sale/
$21.500.000 is kinda entry level
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA6P8Vg_at4
ABotelho23@reddit
I bet most yachts sold are entry level.
kokosgt@reddit
That's not very clickbaity, is it?
ea_man@reddit
And in the meantime I'm running Qwen3.5-9B-GGUF in local for coding on my 12GB old GPU on an old SSD, I'm waiting for OpenAI to burst.
phoenix823@reddit
I was flipping through channels last night and QVC had an HP laptop for sale with 4GB of RAM.
Strazdas1@reddit
yeah, 4GB laptops are back, my network provider tried to sell me one recently. I laughed at them when they said its 4 GB.
Double_Cause4609@reddit
Insane take. We have temporarily elevated prices because there was a huge data center buildout, but what really happened is a ton of data centers moved their upgrade cycle forward by a few years. Their demand is going to drop rapidly at some point, because they already did the 3 year upgrade cycle early.
Plus lots of memory makers are going to up their production very similarly to how chip manufacturers solved the chip shortage of 2020-2021. You don't hear about GPU shortages in 2024-2025 for example.
People are crazy doomer about PCs all the time when there have been perfectly viable windows to ugprade PCs, it's just people haven't been taking them when they're there.
2019 was a good-ish time, even into 2020 when people were panic selling 2080TIs for $300 when they heard about the 3090 was a great time. 2024-2025 was an amazing time to buy RAM and even storage.
People just didn't upgrade when times were good.
But the thing is times will be good again. It'll take until 2028 - 2029 or so, but we'll see great options then, too.
Keep in mind, too, the minimum viable PC has massively deflated quietely, and nobody's noticed. You don't even need to get a GPU anymore for a lot of cases. An 8700G runs games at 1080p at comfortable settings (and today's 1080p medium feels way more like 2017's ultra). 16-32GB of RAM, a bit of storage, an integrated GPU...None of that's extravagant. Factoring in that upscaling and framegen is already on route to being sorted out, and by 2029 ish when the market's good again, and crazy efficient entry level builds are going to be possible.
ghenriks@reddit
You are correct that at some point hopefully things correct
But this isn’t early upgrades of data centres, this is largely new data centres (which is why another big issue is finding the electricity to power these new data centres)
As for increasing chip capacity, maybe but doubtful. It takes a lot of money and time and with most convinced this is a bubble that will burst memory companies (or hard drive companies) are going to be hesitant to spend the money
Double_Cause4609@reddit
I think you missed my point. Even if you're building a new datacenter, you're just adding more hardware into the 3 year upgrade cycle. You're still not upgrading that datacenter within 3 years, even if it's new.
Whether the data center is new or just upgraded, my outcome is still the same; there's a huge buy-in period, and then a chill period where fewer parts are being bought.
Memory companies are already scaling up on various types of memory even if they say they're scared of a bubble. I also wouldn't say that "most" consider is a bubble. Lots of people in PC hardware forums want it to be a bubble, but people in-industry consider it a growth period similar to the early buildout of the internet (and given we're talking about that on the internet, I'd say they were right to make that investment, after a fashion).
But also, look at the timelines I suggested for fixing memory: the chip shortage was fixed in around \~3 years, and we felt the full effect in \~5 years.
The memory shortage was starting to be apparent in early 2025 (that's *why* memory prices got low. They built extra capacity anticipating the AI run) to the memory manufacturers, and they were already looking at extra DRAM capacity to make HBM (more on that later), because they saw the massively increased GPU sales in 2023-2024.
So if you add 3 years ontop of 2025, like with the chip buildouts of the chip shortages, that starts to see fruition towards 2028.
If you add a bit more ontop that gets you to...2029-2031 for the 5 years to feel the full effect of the change in build capacity.
And before you say "Oh but that's HBM, not consumer memory" it doesn't matter. Memory demand is fairly liquid in trends like this, and HBM still uses regular DRAM dies. There is the question of if consumer packaging can keep up with the raw DRAM dies, but it's relatively possible to shift capacity from HBM to DRAM if you need to, and also exotic solutions that deliver HBM to consumers at a discount is also possible. Even if it's not, it's possible for datacenters to trade around what kind of memory they're using to what's available to an extent, which can indirectly alleviate demand on consumer-compatible DRAM sources.
Strazdas1@reddit
its more like 6 years now. Last week we had a report of 6 year old GPU datacenters raising prices because of 100% utilization.
puffz0r@reddit
We literally have large memory fabs building out NOW that will be completed starting in 2027 and in mass production by 2028. RAM shortage won't be forever. And CXMT/chinese memory manufacturers are also building out big, they can supply DDR4 and low level DDR5 and will catch up to leading edge in the coming years. This is a short term supply shock and I wouldn't be surprised if it's over by 2028 at the latest.
AwesomeFrisbee@reddit
Thats the problem: they aren't increasing capacity by that much because the companies all expect the market to crash and they don't want to be forced to drop prices below production value just to get rid of stock.
InflammableAccount@reddit
Couldn't be more wrong on the first point. NEW data center building is exploding. There are more data centers planned or currently under construction in the US than there are currently existing data centers in the US.
I have no idea where you got this horribly incorrect information, or if you're just trolling.
Double_Cause4609@reddit
Sure. And when we saw the internet buildout around the dotcom bubble, we had more planned online infrastructure than existed in the world, going in.
And guess what? Once it was built out, there was too much capacity, and we found a use for that extra capacity years later.
It's the same thing. There will eventually be a point where, even if we achieve superhuman artificial intelligence by 2029, that we eventually find a stable equilibrium of deployed datacenters. When that equilibrium is (as it relates to gaming hardware specifically. Note: I'm critically not assessing datacenters overall; I'm measuring their impact on gaming hardware) hard to say. I'm wagering 2029-2031 due to a confluence of factors.
-CynicalPole-@reddit
Also - nobody needs that many AI-s. A lot of these absurdly expensive investments will burn with lack of high enough returns and right now, EVERYONE is developing their own language model and building fuckton of data centers for them. But investments need to come with returns and I bet many will flop on their head.
ZappySnap@reddit
Have you looked at GPU prices lately? Sure there might not be a major shortage, but the prices stayed insanely high. A 5090 is $3700 at my local micro center. They have a bunch of them, but what does it matter when the price of the top of the top GPU went from $1500 to almost $4000 in just a couple of years.
A 5080 is $1550…50% higher than a 4080 was at launch…and a 4080 was crazy expensive.
Double_Cause4609@reddit
And? If you don't fixate on top-end hardware, it's gotten very cheap to build a PC. As I noted, an iGPU based system offers perfectly viable performance at very reasonable prices (especially if you upgraded in 2025). My point stands.
The thing is that moderate settings in modern games look extremely good nowadays (as long as you don't run out of VRAM. Oh hey, it's really hard to run out of VRAM on an iGPU). Modern medium-high settings literally do look like ultra settings from half a decade ago, but are way way way easier to run.
The truth is that GPUs are just too useful for professional use cases now, and the top end is moving more towards a prosumer market rather than just pure gamers, and prosumers are willing to spend more on their builds.
The truth is: You don't need a high end GPU. If it's too expensive, don't buy it. Use lower end hardware. Also, you didn't mention a 9700XT which was available for excellent prices over the last year.
So yes, I'm intimately aware of GPU prices.
boomstickah@reddit
we had a long period in 25 when MSRP GPU sitting on the shelves and ram was cheap, and nobody was happy. But nothing lasts forever, even these weird high prices
boomstickah@reddit
you are correct. I wouldn't be surprised if we're fine mid 27. The content mills are farming rage, don't click em
LingonberryGreen8881@reddit
The paradigm is on the cusp of changing currenlty. By 2028, the new thing will be neural rendering. The current flagships will struggle with it and it will require an new 6000 series GPU to make proper use of. Turning neural rendering on or off will be the difference between playing a game and playing a movie. The 6000 series will likely support ray tracing but not improve on it much. Legacy support essentially. Turing will prioritize die budget on tensor cores and memory bandwidth.
Plank_With_A_Nail_In@reddit
There next 3 upgrade will still be in 3 years though.
Pie_sky@reddit
I highly doubt this, additionally just wait a few years and all the data center buildout will be replaced and the related second hand hardware will flood the market dropping prices like never seem before.
Renricom@reddit
And how will consumers make use of outdated HBM2 chips?
Obosratsya@reddit
Plenty of ECC memory being dumped from data centers. HBM2 is usually for GPUs. Workstations and servers still use DDR ram, just has to be ECC and buffered. I had an old T3610 from Dell. Ran DDR3 1600 ECC ram in quad channel on it with a 1680v2. This machine can still run modern games. Around r7 3700 level of perf.
Strazdas1@reddit
Reminder that consumer level motherboard do not support ECC memory for DDR5.
kingwhocares@reddit
Just like how outdated DDR4 ram from data centres flooded the consumer market. Also, you should see how people have been buying Nvidia Tesla GPUs due to more VRAM and being chip.
Plank_With_A_Nail_In@reddit
Can you link to people actually doing this? Do they actually do anything important with them?
Lol 2 people doing something isn't relevant.
JaspahX@reddit
Literally look at the homelab and local LLM subs.
kingwhocares@reddit
Companies were selling DDR4 Ram from servers and selling them as DDR4 RAM (without mentioning that they are 2nd hand) at cheap prices.
If you are talking about old Nvidia GPUs with HBM2, you can go to Amazon and find Nvidia V100 (32GB) below $1000. They used to go for below $400 a year back.
GOMADGains@reddit
These don't have video out do they?
And you need to do some hacky stuff to get WDDM to work. Do the newer models let you do that too?
I don't see a normal person doing this.
droptableadventures@reddit
You don't necessarily need to run WDDM on the card, you can render on the card and output to onboard graphics with surprisingly little performance loss on a modern PC.
Normal people don't build PCs, and they play games on a console.
kingwhocares@reddit
Not every GPU is used for gaming or entertainment.
GOMADGains@reddit
Sure, but are we not speaking within the context of entry level pc market? I assumed we were.
kingwhocares@reddit
Entry level gaming never really benefitted from this, not even during the crypto bust after COVID lockdown. It rather benefitted from 2nd hand (used) GPU market.
LordAlfredo@reddit
You can slot DDR4 into a consumer board. HBM not so much.
Also Tesla is an accelerator card, not a GPU. You don't use those for video output.
kingwhocares@reddit
You can buy used GPUs for cheap. Nvidia Tesla V100 uses HBM2 and was pretty popular in /r/LocalLLaMA until its price jumped.
trackdaybruh@reddit
That sounds like a niche product compared to DDR4 ram which was standard in consumer pcs back when DDR4 was the latest generation
prometaSFW@reddit
ECC DDR4 (RDIMMs) will not work on consumer boards. Beyond that the price of ECC DDR4 has at least octupled since last year— I bought 24x 16GB DIMMs for $10/ea and now they are $80 with prices climbing. People on /r/homelab are selling bundles of DDR4 for tens of thousands of dollars and it’s going fast.
spazturtle@reddit
You can remove the DRAM chips and solder them onto a UDIMM PCB. If there is a large supply of old RDIMMs then people in China will do this and sell them.
LordAlfredo@reddit
I accept that yes, there are uses for these outside of servers. I am not questioning that there will be a resale market.
However, this is a thread about entry-level consumer PCs.
Imperial_Bouncer@reddit
Teslas are technically GPUs. They just don’t have their own video outputs. And you cangame on them.
LordAlfredo@reddit
Sure, my point was more the average home consumer is probably not going to want to figure out setting it up with another GPU for output. iGPU can work as passthrough but requires some setup, not to mention it can be finicky, and most people want something that "just works" plug & play + drivers.
pr0metheusssss@reddit
That’s a niche of the consumer market, the homelab market.
Normal consumers are not buying ecc rdimms, and even the fraction of the motherboards/CPUs that can use them (sometimes without the ecc functionality), have little use for slow clocked low capacity dimms, because they have limited ram slots - compared to typical server boards with 16+ slots.
kingwhocares@reddit
https://www.pcgamer.com/skanky-old-ddr4-server-chips-reportedly-sold-in-new-ram-kits-but-really-dont-panic/
InflammableAccount@reddit
At scale would be nice. Strip DDR5 RDIMMs to make UDIMMS.
Or, entirely wishful thinking, the entire consumer market just moves over to fully registered, ECC RAM on all levels.
A guy can dream.
kingwhocares@reddit
That's not happening until 3-4 years into DDR6. What's more likely to happen is that a lot of DDR4 memory that this AI companies bought are going to be repurposed.
-WingsForLife-@reddit
The thing is this is talking about new computers, and in a market where every part is new, in 2028, wouldn't have any of those.
Personally, I don't see it though, chromebook/netbook tier stuff would always exist, those kinds of laptops turning into more than $500, is strange.
Who knows what 2028 holds though.
Azelphur@reddit
Maybe not the HBM2, but I'll take a RTX 6000 blackwell.
ghenriks@reddit
The point is that at this point the data centre market for AI isn’t always using things like the RTX 6000
Nvidia’s data centre stuff is like the Spark where it’s their ARM CPU and GPU combined with the memory in a form factor (and energy consumption) unsuitable for home use
Azelphur@reddit
For me personally, the server rack in my garage is ready lol.
But yea in general I agree.
tnoy@reddit
Keep in mind that the GB200 board needs around 2,700W
Culbrelai@reddit
I would looooove some of those second hand 122tb enterprise SSDs
GenZia@reddit
AM6 with on-package HBM2.
(mic drop)
nonaveris@reddit
Xeon Max 9480 chips were once 900 per processor due to datacenter liquidation, nothing says that can’t happen again.
Renricom@reddit
I wish lol :D
nonaveris@reddit
Buy fully depreciated Xeon Max 9480s for homelab/homeprod use?
zakats@reddit
Hopefully shenzhen will grace us with repurposed server hardware like they do with x99 boards and such.
certainlystormy@reddit
you're allowed to enjoy video games from 5 years ago if that's what you're trying to say
Kukuluops@reddit
The problem is that server hardware is incompatible with consumer motherboards. And server motherboards are too big and specialized for home PCs
Fatigue-Error@reddit
No. The point is that data center gear isn’t necessarily well suited to desktop use.
kingwhocares@reddit
Just wait till all these AI capital investment promises turn up to be empty promises. There's going to be another memory crash, whether that be 2027 or 2028.
DoradoPulido2@reddit
Just like how houses are so much cheaper after the 2008 crash right?
kingwhocares@reddit
US house prices don't fall because the government treats housing as an investment than a necessity. Too many houses =/= fall in house prices.
DoradoPulido2@reddit
That's not how real economics work. There will never be "too many houses" because demand keeps growing, as do prices.
You're pretending the "AI bubble" will burst, like the mortgage bubble did. What broke is the model of lending, not the supply of housing.
"AI capital investment" is a paradigm shift in information technology, whether you believe it provides a benefit or not. There won't be a memory crash in 2027, or 2028. Prices will continue to rise until consumer grade electronics become leased and rented the way cars are. People will no longer build computers the way most no long build cars. That's the future whether you like it or not.
2CommaNoob@reddit
The other guy is right. The tax laws favor real estate greatly for investment. The vast majority of millionaires are due to real estate.
I know a few real estate people and they tell me the tax laws are ridiculous in their favor.
tnoy@reddit
Housing prices dropped significantly, the only problem is that they're back up to higher than they were at the peak of the previous bubble.
https://imgur.com/a/Iyubt6f
DoradoPulido2@reddit
See how they never dropped below previous highs? Memory prices will never go back to what they were pre-2020s AI, even if the market temporarily stumbled.
Zerokx@reddit
Man after bitcoin, covid and AI, tariffs, wars and supply chain issues prices will never have a good price/performance ever again. Yeah maybe the shortage caused by new data centers will go down eventually (hopefully) but the next big thing / war / whatever will be right around the corner and prices wont have too much time to fall.
Jlocke98@reddit
I'm bullish for nano imprint lithography and LLM ASICs to reduce demand for hbm
DoradoPulido2@reddit
Lol second hand hardware from data centers? My poor summer child. That hardware isn't even compatible with your home rig.
droptableadventures@reddit
It's all PCIe anyway. There's just some weird connectors involved.
For an example: Enterprise SSDs come in EDSFF, U.2, M.2 and HHHL. M.2 just works in a normal PC, though it may be 22110 sized rather than 2280 (i.e. a bit longer). You might have to do something interesting to mount it.
The boot drive in my desktop PC is an EDSFF Optane drive. Just needs a slightly janky adaptor cable to hook it up to a M.2 slot. Works perfectly.
U.2 wasn't popular in the consumer space but a lot of motherboards support it. If not, you can get an adaptor to put one in a PCIe slot, or a cable that connects to a M.2 socket.
HHHL is just a normal PCIe card. No different from using a M.2 drive in a PCIe adaptor.
Mellanox ConnectX-4 SFP+ cards are extremely widely available and a very cheap option for 10Gbit or 25Gbit networking. The PCIe ones are pretty cheap, but the OCP ones are even cheaper and can be adapted to normal PCIe slots with a cheap adaptor.
SXM GPUs are certainly not compatible with any consumer hardware. But there are adaptors to connect to a normal PCIe slot. You just need to rig up a dedicated power supply to give them 48v. They are ridiculously wide if you use an adaptor that puts one on a PCIe card, but you can just run PCIe over SlimSAS cables and mount it wherever you want.
Two slot "blower" PCIe GPUs are also pretty common. They often rely on the case airflow to cool them as servers are full of screaming fans, but there's plenty of 3D printed adaptors and shrouds to mount a fan on the end and allow them to work in a normal desktop case.
SAS drives can't be connected to a standard PC SATA port, but a PCIe SAS controller card is about $100 second hand. Works fine in consumer motherboards. The most advanced hacking you'll have to do is put a small piece of sticky tape over the SMBus pins if your board doesn't boot with it installed. You can also use one with a "breakout cable" and run eight normal SATA HDDs off it.
I've also got an LTO-6 tape drive connected to my fileserver, which runs a normal consumer AMD board (specifically picked because it supports ECC memory). It's from a tape library, but inside the box with the proprietary connector, it has a molex power connector. Power from that and it's just standard fibre channel. Fibre channel cards go into a normal PCIe slot, and literally all of them are supported on Linux.
About the only thing you can't get working on a normal consumer board is LRDIMM / FBDIMM buffered server RAM. Though AMD Epyc boards will do it, if you're willing to spend that much (second hand they're not that expensive compared to new).
InflammableAccount@reddit
For extreme homelab enthusiasts who run racks, maybe some of the logic racks will be of use. The compute racks (GPU) will not be practical for home use. Way too much cooling and power needed for home tinkering.
And I hope you need registered DDR5, because all of it will be registered.
The SSDs and HDD exodus may directly benefit all levels of enthusiasts, though. That would be nice.
nonaveris@reddit
No problem here. When 128gb RDIMMs are available for reasonable, sub-1000 sums, that will be a relief.
InflammableAccount@reddit
Ok? I said the logic racks will be usable. Doesn't change the fact that all of this insanely expensive and power drinking compute hardware will not be useful for consumers, even enthusiasts.
boringestnickname@reddit
This ebb and flow between on-site and off-site has been going on for the better part of a century now, and it has never been clear cut.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, and the equilibrium has always ended up with some sort of in-between solution.
There is nothing in this new push that suggests that we've come to some sort of theoretical conclusion. I'd rather argue the opposite.
That we're now moving fast in one direction is simultaneously pushing a lot of potential energy into the coming pendulum swing.
What happens on the ground is simply a failure of markets. There is zero chance that the investments going on right now is hitting the mark.
There will obviously be a correction. The big questions are "when?" and "how severe?"
Other salient questions are related to what kind of contingencies the big players have up their sleeves for when the inevitable happens. When the dust settles, what positions are the actors looking to be in?
I think some people are looking at this entirely the wrong way. We don't have long term rational actors steering the market right now. We have (technological illiterate) opportunists and snake oil salesmen. Not enough people afraid of the inverse of a soft landing, but everyone fully aware that it would be impossible to both survive and not be in on the way up.
Prices are obviously going to drop together with the other shoe. I'm more worried about the following disruption, and what kind of shenanigans the survivors are going to be up to.
max123246@reddit
A lot of the server hardware is too integrated together for it to be usable for consumer PCs unfortunately
PandorasBoxMaker@reddit
Anyone who thinks this will impact only the PC market is high. Consoles, laptops, handhelds are all going to get hit hard. Nobody is ready for a $1500 PS5 / XBone.
Exist50@reddit
That's hyperbole. Prices are a lot higher, yes, but not remotely high enough to triple the retail price of computers.
Kyanche@reddit
Have you seen the prices on SSDs and ddr5 ram lately?! Holy crap lol they're like 3x what they were last year.
I realize that may sound small compared to the price of a 5080 or 5090, but compared to the cost of integrated graphics or a radeon 9060xt, a $300 2TB SSD is a lot .
Strazdas1@reddit
memory and SSD being an extra 100 dollars each (if you dont got for top end versions) isnt going to double the price of entire PC setup.
Exist50@reddit
Which is still not remotely close to what's needed to add $1000 to a 16GB/1TB machine.
Imperial_Bouncer@reddit
You’re right. It’s actually way more than tripe. That’s my RAM; and just one stick. That’s a 626.8% increase.
Crazy to think that just the RAM alone in my PC is worth over $1k now.
DoradoPulido2@reddit
That's the plan. You then have to make payments to rent or lease your device.
AwesomeFrisbee@reddit
Games will be increasing prices too, including all the ingame purchases as well (which are already outragiously expensive)
Chrystoler@reddit
I was debating getting a new phone (mine's on its way out) and this is a serious consideration in my decision - next year phones will be more expensive, worse specced, or most likely, both.
razpor@reddit
This is what big tech wants but it wont happen,pc market will survive.
dvisorxtra@reddit
Yeah, keep pushing that Chinese technological market, nothing bad will happen to the companies making the push
JonWood007@reddit
F AI. I wish this market would pop causing a massive reduction in prices back to the norm.
2CommaNoob@reddit
PC gaming is dying a slow death. It’s too expensive for consumers to build a PC and it’s expensive for companies to develop a video game.
Switch is going to be the winner for a while. PS6 will be delayed again. Xbox is dead; no new console. GTA6 is going to disappoint
toddestan@reddit
The PC gaming scene may just end up moving more towards the smaller indie games, which seem to be doing pretty well once the big AAA games no longer end up viable. It doesn't hurt that many indie games will run just fine on a mid-range PC from 10 years ago.
2CommaNoob@reddit
Yep, indie and phone games will be dominating . There will less and less AAA unless it’s a sequel that will somewhat guarantee sales.
All of media is going to change going forward. Movies and Tv shows are too expensive to make as you have to pay thousands of people, companies and then royalties. Movie stars getting 20m is also a thing of the past when some unknown person can make millions on YouTube or TikTok.
Genksman@reddit
Entry level won't go away it will just get hit with shrinkflation. 16gb today will be 8
Corronchilejano@reddit
I find that an absurd assertion considering how many PCs I've built around Raspberry PIs for kids. It sucks that the price for it has ballooned to $200 for the 16gb of RAM version, but there's' a lot you can do even with just the 4gb models.
Roblox and Fortnite may not run on them, but I consider that a blessing.
Atophy@reddit
Just waiting for the AI bubble to pop and used equipment starts hitting the market in bulk... demand will drop so hard, EVRYONE will burn !
runnybumm@reddit
Entry level pc market hardware will exist with ultra high end prices a deliberate plan to gatekeep AI for consumers
-0_x@reddit
I plan on having my PC in 2028. I heard many people feel the same way.
AKRyder@reddit
Tom’s hardware is trash journalism. They do payed articles all the time.
Mango2149@reddit
Nonsense, worst case people will use old gens and trade old stuff. You got dudes in favelas in Brazil gaming on old gear, it won't disappear, people will adapt.
bronxct1@reddit
You’re describing exactly what happens when the entry market disappears. This is talking about new hardware sales not secondary options.
AwesomeFrisbee@reddit
People don't understand what this means: it means games will get less budget for big graphics because there are less people in the market for these kinds of games. It means that more and more people will be using very outdated graphics that hold back engine developments. It means that people will outright quit gaming because they don't have the budget to continue. It means that prices for games themselves will go up, because companies always find that to be the easiest way to gain more money (while it often leads to even less sales eventually).
c64z86@reddit
Or we could hope that it would lead to optimisation.
HisDivineOrder@reddit
But don't worry because the AI companies all have a solution just waiting for you with the cloud gaming they were trying to make a thing before AI was a glint in Jensen's bank accounts.
c64z86@reddit
Then the companies had better be prepared to watch their profits disappear too.. Because most of the computers purchased are your basic, run of the mill machines. Not everybody out here is buying a Nvidia rtx 5090 with 64GB of RAM.
Microtom_@reddit
China will be more than happy to save us.
kokosgt@reddit
Sure buddy, why make HBMs and sell it at a premium when you can earn less on cheap pc market?
Microtom_@reddit
They will do both though.
lagginat0r@reddit
Are they really? I saw that they're planning on making more HBM, but haven't heard the same about DDR5. I hope they do.
nonaveris@reddit
Because they dont want the regulatory wrath of Washington to come down on them?
Jabba_the_Putt@reddit
This is stupid no it isnt
Deeppurp@reddit
It won't disappear, the bottom of the floor is coming up.
Whirblewind@reddit
No fanfiction here, please.
Deeppurp@reddit
What part of you disagree with: The bottom of the floor rising, or it not disappearing?
ElvisDumbledore@reddit
A thought I've had: Maybe they're trying to price on premise out of existence so everyone will have to go cloud.
Kiwi_CunderThunt@reddit
So not disappearing just not the same level of affordability.
For some time the 2nd hand ex-lease from businesses will fill that niche
ariolander@reddit
Don't worry the Steam Machine will save us! It will be budget at better than 70% of PCs!
JamesMackenzie1234@reddit
I doubt they'll be able to build them, theirs a reason all the steam decks are out of stock.
ariolander@reddit
Definitely, I saw being sarcastic because that was legitimately the public sentiment when it was announced, before AI killed our hopes and dreams.
hishnash@reddit
I expect the winner in this situation will be apple, they have long long term supply contracts and since they make/contract out for all the parts they can move the margin around to compensate. The new low cost MacBook with an A18pro is going to be very popular due to the pricing it can offer.
dfv157@reddit
This is fine actually. A ton of brand new super cheap pcs and laptops are just manufactured ewaste. The junk Best Buy sells on “Black Friday” are not even suitable for casual browsing. People can generally find better deals and less bullshit by buying used systems.
jenny_905@reddit
Doubt.
Entry level PC market has always existed even when they were much more expensive than they are during this memory crisis.
Yojik_Vkarmane@reddit
No it won't. Tech changes, soon we will not even need dram. Incoming CPU tech will change everything.
Marwheel@reddit
Will SBC's fill the role?
PastaPandaSimon@reddit
What a rage bait. I wouldn't have expected much more from Tom's.
raydialseeker@reddit
Mac mini is still peak budget system
loozerr@reddit
If it's the class of hardware that's essentially disposable once you bring it home, good riddance.
ketseki@reddit
That's completely bullshit. Entry level PCs will always continue to exist, and demand will shift to refurbished or repaired devices if OEMs can't keep up.
trololololo2137@reddit
there is so much excellent second hand hardware on the market. cheap stuff dying out is probably a good thing for the environment (cheap laptops etc)
Due_Teaching_6974@reddit
Eventually that pool of cheap secondhand stuff is going to dry out
trololololo2137@reddit
there's way too many people upgrading things for no reason
Due_Teaching_6974@reddit
that's a minority, most people are holding on to their electronics longer
ghenriks@reddit
Even second hand is increasing
Many corporate IT saying they aren’t disposing of old hardware anymore and keeping it as a source of parts as they work to keep old hardware going
Planted-Fish@reddit
I am glad that I do not care about playing the latest and greatest games. I have a 5800x3d and a 7800xt with 32gb of ram and will be running this computer until it can't anymore.
I can no longer justify upgrading.
When the time comes and handhelds are still a thing that may be the way to go for me.
Phantasmalicious@reddit
Not a problem, I will start reading or just shoot myself. Whichever is easier.
NeroClaudius199907@reddit
Hopefully Apple will use their vertical advantage to ensure entry isn't left to the dust. Well without modularity on desktop
IshTheFace@reddit
I'm so happy I put together my new PC little by little from September 24 to Feb 25 when the 9070xt launched. Had I waited another year it could have been way more expensive. Also glad i got a 4 TB m.2. The only thing I'm really missing now is a new monitor, which thankfully won't be affected by RAMageddon.
MisterEyeCandy@reddit
I believe local, used hardware nonprofit organizations that provide computers for disadvantaged and underprivileged families will become even more important.
As technology becomes further paywalled, those that do not have access to technology due to lesser financial means are going to be further left behind.
I'm pretty sure when I retire, this will be what I focus on by volunteering for these organizations.
DavidsSymphony@reddit
The RAM manufacturers have the capacity to expand their production, they just refuse to because they don't think the AI demand is going to last 3-5 years. If the demand doesn't slow down, the situation is actually going to improve a lot by 2028.
Marutks@reddit
1 gb RAM will cost 1000 usd. 🤷♂️
hasanahmad@reddit
this assumes the bubble won't burst
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