Next up: MSI, ASUS, … are pulling out of the consumer market due to falling revenue causing major price hikes.
This is hilarious. Intel after many years finally fixed their manufacturing process, but won’t be able to sell chips because of memory crunch
If they lower their prices of MOBOs to try and generate more sales, that might actually be worth it long term. For RAM, I saw the other day a Laptop RAM conversion to desktop. Which apartment Laptop RAM is still lower priced. There might some interesting Frankenstein builds in the coming months
Burst the fucking bubble already. I’m edging so hard right now.
I fear they will pull a GPU and the storage prices will be permanently 50% higher after.
At least people aren’t buying at these high prices, wouldn’t want them to stay there after all.
This is a good point, we don’t need PCs to be this expensive.
I just hope we don’t fuck up the whole thing and end up with cloud computers or end up not making new PCs…
I’m pretty convinced this is the play. Drive up DIY PC parts then promote thin cloud clients as a way to have a PC without paying the crazy prices that they set. It’s a lot easier to tell you “it’s safer for the children” and pillage every file, action, and keystroke for AI training and data brokerage. Your owned PC is a black box for them and it’s their wet dream to own it for you… As a subscription of course.
5 years ago I would’ve called you insane, but with everything happening right now… it’s a distinct possibility.
RAM’s unaffordable, GPU’s will likely be harder to come by and more expensive. Microsoft is actively driving people away from Windows, Steam is launching their Steam Machine…
Here’s hoping many gamers will jump to Linux and grow that platform instead. But even then, too expensive hardware will be an issue.
We’re living in interesting times.
That is an increasingly high risk I can see, PCs just no longer exist.
I was thinking of upgrading my RAM this year, but I know I don’t have to. It’s their loss, not mine.
who would’ve thought that it would happen… (checks stats) yeah, it was EVERYONE. Gee, maybe someone needs to learn some supply and demand basics by this point. The tenacity!
I haven’t made any purchases since tariffs drove up prices.
I was prepping to build a new NAS in 2026.
Not anymore sellouts.
I went from thinking about a full rig upgrade, to just buying the best used processor and GPU my am4 board could handle with my current PSU and ddr4 ram.
Went from a ryzen 1600x and a Nvidia 1060 to a ryzen 5 5600x and a Radeon rx 6600 xt. I’ll be able to ride that out for a few years no problem.
I went from thinking of upgrades to enjoying my backlog of old games. My wallet and library are both happy and I’m enjoying the games I’m playing.
same. I have over 300 games in my steam library that i’ve bought over the years and the vast majority of which I never launched. So now i’m going through them. combine that with finally getting retroarch/libretro all PROPERLY set up I’ve also got a shit ton of roms from various consoles to play also, games I couldn’t afford as a kid.
Like right now I’m FINALLY playing Ocarina of Time for the first time ever and it’s a blast, now I understand why people love it so much. Also started playing New Vegas and System Shock on the PC which I’ve owned for years and never played and both those are great too. New Vegas is REALLY fun.
Likewise. I haven’t bought a game that wasn’t at least a year old in a decade. Heck, right now I’m playing Psychonauts.
Same here, the Steam Deck changed my life 😆. Less AAA, more AA and indie games, especially at work.
funny i bought exactly the same CPU and GPU half a year ago. Someone in my city sold these for 200€.
I was going to go for an AM5 board and everything, but couldn’t afford it. My older parts were from 2016 and not even terrible. Its funny how little the hardware requirements have changed in the games and OS area. I am still using the same 16g RAM and PSU from 2016.
Ryzen 5600x here, was rocking a 6700 XT but found a good deal on a RX 9070 for $540 right around when the RAM prices increased. Already have 32 GB RAM, so I’m set for a while.
Yeah, I had the ram, but the 6600xt was the most I could buy without having to also upgrade my PSU.
The artificial price hikes actually saved you money. Noice!
I also decided to do a mild upgrade in my AM4 board rather than shell out for marginal upgrades. I’m rocking the 5700x3d 5700xt build.
AM4 unite! Have had 3600X and 2070 super since 2019 and still works well. Although some USB-ports on the mobo are starting to degrade.
That’s alright. USB rails for a PCI slot are dirt cheap.
Nice, had a nitro 6650xt, can’t recommend enough if it makes sense financially
Paid under $200 for it and it punches well above the 1060 I’ve been using. Wanted a Radeon because they play nicer with Linux and this card is the beefiest AMD I could go without having to also buy a new PSU. Also couldn’t go much nicer anyhow or I’d be creeping up on games cpu limited, so it pairs nicely with the r 5 5600x. So for me and my particular set up it made for a nicely balanced hardware and cost choice. After this it will just be time for all new hardware in a few more years.
Nnnoooo, you won’t get enough fps to enjoy your games!!!
/s in case some of you don’t get it
My eyes aren’t good enough for 4k. Lol
It’s the obsession with replacing PCIe slots with M.2 sockets that gets me.
Why not? I think its quite convenient. Also saves some required wiring and its very compact
I’m more concerned with PCI slots blocked by massive GPUs, especially on smaller form factor boards. You’ll need PCI/e extension cables to install an additional card.
There are not many cards you need these days, especially not that doesn’t have an USB equivalent. USB capture cards are now decent, same for Wi-Fi+Bluetooth ones (provided to buy one with deported antennas). Other than storage related ones (for moar m.2!, or for sff SAS ports), I don’t see that much uses these days.
Even my NAS, which uses a micro-ATX MB, only uses one slot on the 3 available. And all its 4 m.2 ports are used (2 for redundant system discs, one for an AI accelerators (for Frigate object detection), the last one being an old SSD used as ZFS cache for my main disk array (will probably be replaced by another AI accelerator once I find another use which would need one).
Motherboards seem to have a normal amount of slots though?
Not like you can populate them all anyway, though. Use one modern (i.e. oversized) graphics card and it seems to block three slots.
Honestly, probably a buy opportunity for good ddr5 motherboards. When the bubble bursts then you can buy the ram for pennies.
Yeah in 2035 when we’ve moved to DDR7
I don’t understand what their long-term plan is here. Even if AI isn’t a bubble eventually all of the AI companies are going to get to a point where they don’t need more compute because they’re working on algorithmic optimisations because they decide that that’s cheaper.
Then they’re going to have to pivot back to the consumer market. Except by that point it won’t even be a consumer market because China will have eaten their lunch.
I read a great article recently that tries to analyze what exactly went down and for what reasons. And most importantly, the effects it’s going to have on different hardware prices: https://www.mooreslawisdead.com/post/sam-altman-s-dirty-dram-deal
Yeah that’s widely considered to be the article about it tbh
Yeah people will probably turn to China when it comes to consumer pc hardware in the future like how when it comes to drones its been primarily just China actually interested in selling to regular people.
The companies making the ram chips are not the ones making motherboards. They just want to sell their product for as much as they can.
Shutting down your entire consumer business does seem a bit short sighted though - keep the doors open for the future.
The plan is to continue making bank until the companies are done with them, then sell to consumers again without missing a beat.
Source: the GPU shortage we just went through.
Future source: the CPU shortage scheduled for 2026.
That’s my point though they can’t do that.
The market isn’t just going to wait around for them to get around to selling to consumers again. China is going to see an opening and they’re going to manufacture their own chips and make bank. Then when the traditional manufacturer is getting their head out of their arses then realise there market share has vanished. All 100% their fault.
They have decided to shoot themselves in the foot because someone’s convinced them they won’t ever need legs ever again.
Eh, Chinese manufacturers are also desperately trying to catch up with AI hype. In any case, we’ll see some new brands on the market, and it’s not a bad thing, and I would not spend my time worrying about giant rich corporations.
My actual worry is that once RAM prices go up, they won’t go down for quite some time. If we get another bubble after AI bubble pops, the prices may not decrease at all.I hope China moves to Linux once they get around to pushing their own consumer PC parts and move on from Windows. It’s just madness to me that countries will use OS of countries they aren’t on good terms with and use it to do important work on it and store important data on it.
Cloud computing. Stallman was right.
Noooooo don’t say that ;a;
We would need a better general network for that. Remember stadia? Nothing has changed since then, hell some areas have even lost some capacity.
I’d you’re talking about cloud computing for gaming specifically (as you can of course use cloud computing for, well, everything), then maybe it’s not good enough in the US, I don’t know enough about that area to say, but networking is definitively more than sufficient in Europe.
These companies are controlled almost entirely by people who only really care about what the stock price will be sometime in the next few years or so.
*quarters, or even months
Somebody pop the zit that is AI.
AI isnt a zit, its a giant infected boil and blister now.
I don’t disagree lance that green puss filled cavity.
what if we cannibalize our long-term viability for a short-term gain says every dipshit in charge of tech hardware manufacturing.
That’s every company, most upper management don’t stay in one position for more than 2 years. So the system is setup for short term gains because investors aren’t interested in long term investments and the blowback is the next guys problem. Who then is looking for the next big win to cover up the last guy issues without fixing anything. Then they bring in someone to clean up the mess and the cycle starts again.
Plus most consumers have short memories or don’t have an alternative so their stuck. There are small groups holding on but for 75% of the world’s population right now it’s Android or iOS, AMD or Intel, AMD or NVIDIA, Samsung or WD or Seagate or SanDisk, Att or Verizon, Apple or Microsoft, and so on.
you know when the bubble pops and they no longer have AI companies buying RAM they will switch back to consumers and keep the high prices.
if they’re still around when the financial shell game they’re playing finally comes to a stop. who am i kidding the government will bail them out.
Using your money.
Profits for me, losses for thee
That only works if we (the collective we) have more money. If a rich person has more $$ than a small country that means the effect we have is equivalent.
That’s why micron is doing what its doing. We are no longer the customer. They voted for us.
if the US government were actually funded by taxes, then everything the government does would be with “my money”
Well, if you’re a citizen, the country is yours, and the government is there to manage it, but some assholes in power managed to convince people that it’s the other way around
Absolutely
Of course, not all the companies survive and now there’s decreased competition, so we can shove prices up a little bit further
Also your reputation. I had a Crucial SSD and was days from getting an identical one as a backup but then they said they were stopping consumer RAM sales so they’re now on my blacklist.
Question is, though, who now isn’t on your blacklist?
Samsung and SK Hynix never sold to consumers directly, yet seem to be avoiding flak. Micron is now joining them in that.
Who do you get that isn’t that three? Almost all RAM on the market is Samsung, SK Hynix, or Micron.
On top of that, Samsung and SK Hynix were the ones that signed the OpenAI deal (OpenAI bought 40% of the world’s DRAM supply and kicked off panic buying), so tbh Micron is the least responsible for the current DRAM market issues.
Every business is doing this for everything. To different degrees but they are all chasing their “get our fortune now and get the fuck out because the sky is falling” mentality. Have been since Trump 1.0 and now it’s accelerating rapidly.
You have to remember that “get that bag” is practically inherit to business. We spend a lot of time and effort making it illegal to fuck people over and do bad business stuff, but kinda-sorta since Regan the businesses have slowly been winning that battle.
how are they in control? market demand is an outside force
