Get ready to buy PC memory like you buy lobster.

Generative “AI” data centers are gobbling up trillions of dollars in capital, not to mention heating up the planet like a microwave. As a result there’s a capacity crunch on memory production, shooting the prices for RAM sky high, over 100 percent in the last few months alone. Multiple stores are tired of adjusting the prices day to day, and won’t even display them. You find out how much it costs at checkout.

  • notabot@piefed.socialEnglish
    1191·
    12 days ago

    It wouldn’t be quite so bad if the previous gold rush ended first, but they seem to just be stacking up.

    • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      35·
      12 days ago

      Speak for your self - scored a nice GPU upgrade during the crypto crash, maybe something similar will be achievable after this insanity hits the brakes.

        • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
          2·
          11 days ago

          Gaming GPUs during normal crypto markets don’t compute fast enough to mine crypto profitably, but if crypto prices get high enough such as during a boom cycle, it can become profitable to mine on gaming GPUs

          Edit to add: For crypto there’s basically a set speed that any given GPU mines at. The hash rate specifically. It really doesn’t change noticably over time through software updates, nor does the power consumption of the GPU. Its basically a set cost per cryptocurrency mined with any given hardware. If the value earned by mining can exceed the cost to run the GPU then GPU mining can quickly start making sense again.

    • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
      2·
      11 days ago

      There was a nice window from about a year or two ago to about 3 months ago where no individual components were noticably inflated. Monitors took the longest to recover since the pandemic shortages so that was arguably around the beginning of this year that they seemed to fully normalize

      Its funny because at work we’ve been pushing hard on Windows 11 refreshes all year and warning that there will likely be a rush of folks refreshing at the last possible minute at the end of the year inflating prices. And we ended up being correct on the inflated prices part but it was actually the AI bubble that did it