WATCH OUT FOR RAM PRICES!

PerpetualCycle · Dec 19, 2025

x509 said:
I happen to like G. Skill DRAM. I have to appreciate that they are at least acknowledging our pain and not simply gouging our eyes out.

Same. All I have used in quite a while. Have both A-die and M-die SK-Hynix G.skill DDR5 currently

retiredat44 · Dec 19, 2025

IMHI, B die is still on the very good side. Getting A die is more luck than anything. It was sort of like the luck when Intel sent many computer builders the bad CPU's 2 years ago, and told us to pound sand. You either got one or you didn't.

Scannerman · Dec 25, 2025

This might be of use to some folks.

Stop buying new RAM: Here's how to safely buy used instead

Used RAM can net you savings, but you need to be careful.

www.howtogeek.com

Wolfzz · Dec 26, 2025

PC Makers Are Fighting for Memory Capacity as Reports Warn That Postponing Product Launches Might Be the Only Option Left

PC Makers Are Fighting for Memory Capacity as Reports Warn That Postponing Product Launches Might Be the Only Option Left

Despite holding the capital, PC manufacturers are struggling to secure a sufficient memory supply, leaving them with limited options.

wccftech.com

PhilB · Dec 26, 2025

Wolfzz said:
PC Makers Are Fighting for Memory Capacity as Reports Warn That Postponing Product Launches Might Be the Only Option Left

PC Makers Are Fighting for Memory Capacity as Reports Warn That Postponing Product Launches Might Be the Only Option Left

Despite holding the capital, PC manufacturers are struggling to secure a sufficient memory supply, leaving them with limited options.

wccftech.com

Which isn't exactly a great option, in fact it's a lousy option.

But the harsh, bitter reality is that the DRAM tail is wagging the dog. And the PC makers are up s--- creek without a paddle in a very leaky boat in a big rainstorm.

Scannerman · Dec 28, 2025

Older PCs are going to increase in value. Most people won't care about having a "legit" Windows 11 OS. They'll be doing Rufus and X-Lite. Others, done with the nonsense will just use Linux because Linux installs easily on older PCs. The people this will hurt the most on the domestic end will be gamers. I suspect the "solution" will be compute via AI and your processing speed will be dependant on your fiber so you will need to stay online for that. Seems like PCs are heading toward more of a glorified word processing status with all the real work being done out on the "Cloud". Meh, it was fun while it lasted.

PhilB · Dec 29, 2025

Scannerman said:
Older PCs are going to increase in value. Most people

... who are members of this forum. Corporate users, they will probably upgrade anyway to get PCs that are AI capable. Normie home users, they will probably stick with Windows 10. At least, that's how I see it.

Scannerman said:
Others, done with the nonsense will just use Linux because Linux installs easily on older PCs.

Probably not the normies.

Scannerman said:
The people this will hurt the most on the domestic end will be gamers.

They will probably lower expectations for performance from newer games. Or maybe spend "some" money for a faster GPU.

abactuon · Dec 29, 2025

The game "Far Cry 2" works better on old computers than on new ones (and this game is better than Far Cry 6).

Scannerman · Dec 29, 2025

x509 said:
... who are members of this forum. Corporate users, they will probably upgrade anyway to get PCs that are AI capable. Normie home users, they will probably stick with Windows 10. At least, that's how I see it.

Probably not the normies.

They will probably lower expectations for performance from newer games. Or maybe spend "some" money for a faster GPU.

I'm not a corporate user and I've been a member on Win7, 8, 9, 10, and now this forum. I'm a PC enthusiast/builder/repair guy. Admittedly, I'm not a normie and never really have been. That said I'm a Dad with children ranging from the ages of 14 through to 39 so I know what a lot of younger people are doing. You are correct regarding Windows 10. Even my wife is still using it (despite me getting Win 11 for her) and once you get rid of the garbage that constitutes half the OS Win 10 is not a half bad operating system. I still prefer Win 7 but that's a personal preference.

Older PCs have Win 10 on them and people are hanging onto them more and more because they just can't afford the outrageous prices so they keep them because they still work. Rufus has never been so popular thanks to Windows 11 and a lot of normies know someone who can do the Rufus upgrade or, they will buy an older refurbished model that has a modded Win 11 OS on it. Others (I'll say it again) done with the nonsense will just use Linux.

GPU prices are about to go thru the roof. I'm tempted to say "astronomically high" but they already are thanks to bit coin. This is why I stated that gamers are going to hurt the most from this outrageous hike in silicon prices. All of it will be affected: GPUs, CPUs, NVMe, SSDs, and of course, RAM. I'm almost glad I'm old now I have what I need to carry me through. Alas, I'm seeing a dark future ahead for humanity. Getting off the grid or at least being in a position to do so (Like Dave Plumber) might be a worthwhile venture for young, healthy people.

abactuon · Dec 29, 2025

I hate computers and would rather go to study at the Faculty of Biology and grow flowers.

Scannerman · Dec 29, 2025

abactuon said:
I hate computers and would rather go to study at the Faculty of Biology and grow flowers.

Learn to grow food naturally and independently. Become a prepper and head for the hills.

abactuon · Dec 29, 2025

Is the food you buy in the store made by AI?
You shouldn't have taken all this personally.
There is nothing inherently wrong with computers as a hobby or as a profession.
I've been doing this all my life.
They are simply given too much importance.
If you worked in this industry (I don’t mean a profession like a system administrator), you should know that this is a real garbage dump.
Maybe when I started everything was a little different, but the prerequisites for today’s madness were already there.

glasskuter · Dec 29, 2025

A warning. I'm gonna get on my soapbox here so pass unless you want an old woman's opinion on this.

I agree that the ones most affected will be gamers who want the latest, greatest, fastest, biggest, and now most expensive ram packages and GPU cards out there. They better be prepared to pay more to play. What's going to affect normies the most is storage prices; at least normies like me whose income is limited who will have to make do with what we got.

Some smaller OEMs might well shut their doors sooner than later and the larger OEMs like Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc will be forced to make major changes in the way they operate for the consumer market just to be able to sell home devices. But in this game, companies like those are not big players anymore. They're small fish and can easily become causalities, too.

Regulars here will know this, but others may not. People think there are many computer memory companies (DRAM and flash) worldwide, but there's really only three primary semiconductor companies, often referred to as the "Big Three"; Samsung and Hynix are in South Korea, Micron in the US.
Other companies produce memory modules or controllers, but these three are the core manufacturers of the actual memory chips themselves. Micron is jumping ship to AI, so it's probably a good bet the other two will as well and it's all to whomever will pay the most and that's not the consumer. Big money is greasing these wheels.

Brands, such as Corsair, G.Skill, Kingston, ADATA, and PNY, manufacture the complete memory modules (e.g., RAM sticks for a PC) but purchase the actual integrated memory circuits (ICs or chips) from one of the big three. Some of these may also become casualities before it's all over.

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but I'm on a roll here and do have my own theory about these AI data centers. AI will eventually rule the world as we know it. It's going to change everything. It's going to control everything. Building these data centers around the world is all about power.....world dominating power, not competition. No one will convince me that it's just MS, Google, Amazon, Musk, et al building these centers independently of each other.

It makes me wonder exactly who is in cahoots with whom to do all this greasing and if anyone, anywhere is monitoring what the final outcome could be.
Probably not because pockets will be greased every step of the way with lots & lots of money. We already know in some places, there is water and power shortages for the public because it's all going to these data centers. For God's sake, they're resurrecting 3 Mile Island nuclear power plant strictly for Microsoft to get 100% of its production. That ought to say something.
To me that's scary, not progress. Look at the condition of other parts of the world that lacks infrastructure.
Many of us here won't live to see it all come together so I guess we don't have to worry about it, but just stop and think about its possible implications for future generations.

Ok, that's my last rant of 2025. Happy New Year, boys and girls.

Scannerman · Dec 29, 2025

Preach it, sister! Not a single word of your missive was off base. What Micron has done is a complete and utter betrayal when one considers all the recent tax incentives they received just to expand manufacturing. Americans literally paid them to get snubbed. Steve Miller's, Take the Money and Run comes to mind. Micron has run to the arms of Big Daddy AI at the expense of the tax payers and people are oblivious to what just happened. Talk about a bait and switch!

Although, MS, GOOGLE, Amazon, Musk etc. all have big stakes in the game (let's not forget NVIDIA) there's a whole lot more to the picture than meets the eye. In the 60's and 70's we had the space wars. Well, now it's the silicon wars. China gave U.S, (and the rest) quite a scare with Deep Seek and now the race is on in earnest. The rationale playing out here is the same as it ever was: "If we don't do it then the other guy will." And they're right. So where does that leave us?

AI is going to run, operate, conduct, permeate every iota of our lives from the cradle to the grave. Instead of the compute working for us we all gonna be workin' for the compute. I'm sure the trans-humanists think this is wonderful and awesome thing. Sci Fi just got real, folks. We are indeed witnessing the advent of our dystopia. I'm sure that sounds off the wall. I'm certain it strikes many readers here as alarmist. Dawg gone, I left my aluminum foil hat in the kitchen drawer! You know I can't possibly hope to be more wrong about this but I know I'm not.

Look at the thousands of jobs vanishing into thin air. Look at how the stock market is dominated via high speed tech. Look at how so many places in Europe won't even honour physical money anymore. Check out how people are instantly cut off of their livelihoods i.e. Canada and China at the flick of a switch. This stuff is real. I can barely make online purchases anymore simply because I don't own a cell phone! Whatever happened to options?? No, I don't like where this is heading. No, not one bit.

RD Mercer · Dec 29, 2025

At 74 this old dude is doing fine for all my needs, of just surfing the web, with an old 4790k and 32 gig of ddr 3 on the 1 ghz internet speed.

Scannerman · Dec 29, 2025

RD Mercer said:
At 74 this old dude is doing fine for all my needs, of just surfing the web, with an old 4790k and 32 gig of ddr 3 on the 1 ghz internet speed.

I'm currently rebuilding my beloved's Sabertooth Z87. It's running a 4770K and 32GB of G.Skill DDR3 RAM. We're doing 1GHz internet here too and I just pulled the trigger on fiber so sometime next year I'll be enjoying that speed on the up and the down. She's very happy with it but it needed a good cleaning and some fans replaced. I got carried away a little and decided to give her a new PSU and some storage upgrades. (I also decided to mod the case a little.) Waiting for the PSU to come in before I complete the rebuild. I literally have hundreds of sticks of DDR3 RAM on hand from doing upgrades on other people's PCs, garage sales, and cannibalizing old boxes. I'm good here. We don't need the latest blazing fast speeds for our PCs to function adequately.

PhilB · Dec 29, 2025

abactuon said:
I hate computers and would rather go to study at the Faculty of Biology and grow flowers.

So why are you a member of this forum??

Edwin · Dec 29, 2025

x509 said:
So why are you a member of this forum??

Lol!
Secretly, we all hate computers and want to beat them into submission!

PhilB · Dec 29, 2025

glasskuter said:
A warning. I'm gonna get on my soapbox here so pass unless you want an old woman's opinion on this.

I agree that the ones most affected will be gamers who want the latest, greatest, fastest, biggest, and now most expensive ram packages and GPU cards out there. They better be prepared to pay more to play. What's going to affect normies the most is storage prices; at least normies like me whose income is limited who will have to make do with what we got.

Some smaller OEMs might well shut their doors sooner than later and the larger OEMs like Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc will be forced to make major changes in the way they operate for the consumer market just to be able to sell home devices. But in this game, companies like those are not big players anymore. They're small fish and can easily become causalities, too.

Regulars here will know this, but others may not. People think there are many computer memory companies (DRAM and flash) worldwide, but there's really only three primary semiconductor companies, often referred to as the "Big Three"; Samsung and Hynix are in South Korea, Micron in the US.
Other companies produce memory modules or controllers, but these three are the core manufacturers of the actual memory chips themselves. Micron is jumping ship to AI, so it's probably a good bet the other two will as well and it's all to whomever will pay the most and that's not the consumer. Big money is greasing these wheels.

Brands, such as Corsair, G.Skill, Kingston, ADATA, and PNY, manufacture the complete memory modules (e.g., RAM sticks for a PC) but purchase the actual integrated memory circuits (ICs or chips) from one of the big three. Some of these may also become casualities before it's all over.

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but I'm on a roll here and do have my own theory about these AI data centers. AI will eventually rule the world as we know it. It's going to change everything. It's going to control everything. Building these data centers around the world is all about power.....world dominating power, not competition. No one will convince me that it's just MS, Google, Amazon, Musk, et al building these centers independently of each other.

It makes me wonder exactly who is in cahoots with whom to do all this greasing and if anyone, anywhere is monitoring what the final outcome could be.
Probably not because pockets will be greased every step of the way with lots & lots of money. We already know in some places, there is water and power shortages for the public because it's all going to these data centers. For God's sake, they're resurrecting 3 Mile Island nuclear power plant strictly for Microsoft to get 100% of its production. That ought to say something.
To me that's scary, not progress. Look at the condition of other parts of the world that lacks infrastructure.
Many of us here won't live to see it all come together so I guess we don't have to worry about it, but just stop and think about its possible implications for future generations.

Ok, that's my last rant of 2025. Happy New Year, boys and girls.

Wow, what a statement. While I don't agree with everything you say, I have to admire your perceptiveness about many issues, particularly about the future of many vendors. Let me build on your last major point. Sooner or later the hyperscaler companies and major partners like NVidia, construction companies, and perhaps electric utilities, will form an industry or trade association, in the US and probably in the EU. This association will hand out money to political candidates. For regulatory agencies, they will strive for "regulatory capture." Like former US Senate Majority Leader once supposedly said during the debate for health care insurance, "Nobody ever lobbied me for the public interest."

Sic transit gloria mundi.

abactuon · Dec 29, 2025

x509 said:
So why are you a member of this forum??

It’s like a smoking addiction; if you start smoking at an early age, it’s impossible to quit.
And learn Windows a little without straining too much.
---------------------------

Example.
There is a satellite constellation in Earth orbit.
It's completely computer-controlled, with no human intervention. Each satellite is also controlled by an onboard computer.
All of this is necessary for someone to profit from it.
Not even the state in general, but specific people who understand absolutely nothing about computer technology.
It's not surprising with an IQ like Einstein or Epstein.
Do you want to become one of those satellites?
But it's okay, Windows isn't used there, so the example is unsuccessful.

WATCH OUT FOR RAM PRICES!

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PC Makers Are Fighting for Memory Capacity as Reports Warn That Postponing Product Launches Might Be the Only Option Left​

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PC Makers Are Fighting for Memory Capacity as Reports Warn That Postponing Product Launches Might Be the Only Option Left​

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PC Makers Are Fighting for Memory Capacity as Reports Warn That Postponing Product Launches Might Be the Only Option Left

PC Makers Are Fighting for Memory Capacity as Reports Warn That Postponing Product Launches Might Be the Only Option Left