WATCH OUT FOR RAM PRICES!

Scannerman · May 13, 2026

I'm thinking about converting my basement into a bomb shelter. Someone told me the sky was falling and you just know that's gotta be true coz they said it. My used RAM is getting more and more precious every day. Think I'll hang onto it just to see how long it takes for the used prices to match the retail prices it used to cost. lol. Should be any time . . . Yup. As soon as AI comes crashing to the ground everything should be back to normal. :zany:

RD Mercer · May 13, 2026

Scannerman said:
My used RAM is getting more and more precious every day. Think I'll hang onto it just to see how long it takes for the used prices to match the retail prices it used to cost.

Yeah, I already see many on eBay jacking up the prices of DDR3, funny thing is, it's not selling at those high prices. Hopefully the DDR3 ram boat they all jumped on, they will find out soon, it's sinking. I have enough DDR3 to build 10 more PC's, but I already have to many. :lmao:

Scannerman · May 13, 2026

RD Mercer said:
Yeah, I already see many on eBay jacking up the prices of DDR3, funny thing is, it's not selling at those high prices. Hopefully the DDR3 ram boat they all jumped on, they will find out soon, it's sinking. I have enough DDR3 to build 10 more PC's, but I already have to many.

I'm in the same boat but never bothered to sell the stuff. Generally when I make a build for someone if they are in a pinch I will give them used hardware as a courtesy. Funny thing is, I'm like the Maytag repair man (dating myself here) . . . Once my build walks out that door they rarely ever come back with it. I have a fellow directly across the street from me using a DDR2 system I refurbished for him for free. Says he likes it and still uses it to check his email. lol Most of my home uses DDR3 still and they are happy with it because it's DDR3 on quad core and SSDs. Plus, as you already mentioned, 1Gbps net speed helps.

AK6DN · May 18, 2026

AK6DN said:
Nah, nothing nefarious. Pure economic supply and demand. When all the AI datacenter builders announce plans to spend hundreds of billions or even into the trillions of US$ on capital expenditures, and a large portion of that is in AI chips and supporting RAM technology, they have locked up the market supply for the next several years. Adding more DRAM fabs is not an easy or possible in the short term. These fabs are hugely expensive and take time to come online.

Of course the AI buildout could turn into a complete bust next year and the market could be flooded with no longer needed memory.
\Who knows. My crystal ball needs a significant RAM upgrade right now to work correctly, and I just cant buy an upgrade right now. Backordered. LOL

So, memory vendors now saying in earnings announcements we ain't building no new fabs for this (maybe specious maybe disappearing) memory demand. So 'live with it'.

Seagate leads memory sell-off as CEO says it would 'take too long' to build new factories

Seagate CEO Dave Mosley's comment sent shares sinking, along with those of Micron, SanDisk and Western Digital.

www.cnbc.com

Scannerman · May 18, 2026

My tin foil hat says follow the money trail. Nobody here inadvertently generated a DRAM shortage. The move was planned and deliberate. The plan worked: Record profits. Personally, I hope they choke on their greed. Doubtless this model will suffer a 'deadly head wound' at some point but methinks it will spring back with a vengeance. I'm too old to be holding my breath. One only need to look back on recent history to see how this game is played: Take the money and run. Some heads will roll. So what. Nothing personal. It's just bizznizz. Corporate bankruptcy is nothing new. What goes up must come down and some times it even crashes and burns. AI isn't gonna die. (At least not for a while yet.) The sky is the limit until the market crashes. The said 'AI buildout' could well become another bail out. Ain't corporate welfare grande? Bubble, schmubble, toil and trouble. Those old prices we once enjoyed are gone.

RD Mercer · May 18, 2026

I have read this a few times, but I guess it will be a wait and see thing. "Across the US, a massive grassroots pushback has emerged against the construction of massive AI data centers, with surveys showing nearly 7 in 10 Americans oppose these facilities being built in their local communities".

Josey Wales · May 18, 2026

Scannerman said:
My tin foil hat says follow the money trail. Nobody here inadvertently generated a DRAM shortage. The move was planned and deliberate. The plan worked: Record profits. Personally, I hope they choke on their greed. Doubtless this model will suffer a 'deadly head wound' at some point but methinks it will spring back with a vengeance. I'm too old to be holding my breath. One only need to look back on recent history to see how this game is played: Take the money and run. Some heads will roll. So what. Nothing personal. It's just bizznizz. Corporate bankruptcy is nothing new. What goes up must come down and some times it even crashes and burns. AI isn't gonna die. (At least not for a while yet.) The sky is the limit until the market crashes. The said 'AI buildout' could well become another bail out. Ain't corporate welfare grande? Bubble, schmubble, toil and trouble. Those old prices we once enjoyed are gone.

AI was planned, the supply of RAM and SSD 's went to the large corporations that are trying to install data centers all over. Crucial even quit the consumer business . Samsung is now cutting back on manufacturing memory. When all of The Data centers are finished and robots are doing jobs that Humans used to do the prices will come down. The only problem is that we will all be back to using Dumb Terminals to get on the interwebs.

gunrunnerjohn · May 18, 2026

My last computer served me almost ten years, if this one lasts half as long, I'll be in good shape. At least one of the two computers I have will still be running, and I can always dust off the laptop or even stick a keyboard on my little ACEMAGIC Mini PC Vista V1, it has 16GB and a 1TB SSD, I think it's sufficient to get onto the Internet and keep my taxes up to date.

There sure is a lot of panic over a commodity that most likely very few people posting here are going to need for at least several years. When AI takes a dump, memory will be back down in price, keep your pants on. :lmao:

Scannerman · May 18, 2026

RD Mercer said:
I have read this a few times, but I guess it will be a wait and see thing. "Across the US, a massive grassroots pushback has emerged against the construction of massive AI data centers, with surveys showing nearly 7 in 10 Americans oppose these facilities being built in their local communities".

Corporate mechanics demands that AI continues. The data centres will be built regardless of what the plebs think. Even if these are not built in their local communities they will still be built. Too much has been invested in this for them to turn around and change their minds. It already has too much momentum. This train will not stop.

Josey Wales said:
When all of The Data centers are finished and robots are doing jobs that Humans used to do the prices will come down. The only problem is that we will all be back to using Dumb Terminals to get on the interwebs.

That may be true but I rather doubt that we will be looking at prices anywhere near what they were in 2024. It might well be that RAM requirements won't be that great for the domestic end user at that point. Ironically, a shortage of demand can also result in a price increase. Non-AI computing will be relegated to the hobbyist level at that point and hobbies can get real expensive fast. At the other end of the spectrum there is R&D. Those folks will always be expected to pay top dollar for anything they may need to purchase. If there is an escape on the horizon they will also be the ones most likely to provide it but again, I'm too old to be holding my breath. I'll just work with what I have.

Scannerman · May 18, 2026

gunrunnerjohn said:
When AI takes a dump, memory will be back down in price, keep your pants on.

Can you give us a ball park figure on when this is most likely to happen? Some of us don't have a lot of time.

gunrunnerjohn · May 18, 2026

Scannerman said:
Can you give us a ball park figure on when this is most likely to happen? Some of us don't have a lot of time.

Hell, I'll be 83 next month, so I already have one foot on a banana peel, I'm just going to lumber along with the time I have left.

RD Mercer · May 18, 2026

gunrunnerjohn said:
Hell, I'll be 83 next month, so I already have one foot on a banana peel, I'm just going to lumber along with the time I have left.

You have 9 years on me. I’m just living a very peaceful life, after I crossed that bridge of slowdown, I’m no rush to do anything anymore, just enjoying my time day to day. Kind of wish I would have gotten into the ham radio thing, back in the late 80’s instead of Computers, it would have probably been better for this old hermit today.

DarkShadowMD · May 18, 2026

Scannerman said:
Corporate mechanics demands that AI continues. The data centres will be built regardless of what the plebs think. Even if these are not built in their local communities they will still be built. Too much has been invested in this for them to turn around and change their minds. It already has too much momentum. This train will not stop.

You are way too positive with this thing.
AI is unsustainable, and it has shown signs of decay many times.

They can't build stuff without hardware they don't have, with money they don't have.

This is just destined to fail, like NFT's. Just another scam from people thinking they are smarter than us...

TraderGary · May 18, 2026

84 here. Got my ham radio license when I was 15. I'm W9VJ. I've been around the block many times and hope to make it around a few more.

TraderGary · May 18, 2026

I think the development of AI is important and will continue unabated.

AK6DN · May 18, 2026

Scannerman said:
Corporate mechanics demands that AI continues. The data centres will be built regardless of what the plebs think. Even if these are not built in their local communities they will still be built. Too much has been invested in this for them to turn around and change their minds. It already has too much momentum. This train will not stop.

IDK. All the massive commitment of funds is based on future AI revenue materializing.
That has not happened yet, most pure AI companies are not yet profitable.
Somehow they are counting on corporate America sending them big bucks to buy their AI tools and services.
But AI adoption only works if the use of AI to replace knowledge workers is less costly than the workers.
At this point I don't see how the math works to pay for all this infrastructure using profits from existing revenue sources.

Scannerman · May 18, 2026

DarkShadowMD said:
You are way too positive with this thing.
AI is unsustainable, and it has shown signs of decay many times.

They can't build stuff without hardware they don't have, with money they don't have.

This is just destined to fail, like NFT's. Just another scam from people thinking they are smarter than us...

I'll be completely candid here: I would rather AI crashes and burns than continue witnessing the countless job losses, fleeced artists, and disinformation on steroids operating at an all time high. I certainly get your drift and I posted a meme about it in this forum, more specifically on this thread, supporting your view. Despite the fact that it was met with hard criticism I do not completely disagree with your view. That said I'm still inclined to think that after the billions and billions banked on this we have certainly NOT seen the end of AI. This is only wishful thinking. I can't express how much I wish I were wrong about this but I have already stated that I foresee a point where AI might appear to be dead in the water until it comes back with a vengeance. Microsoft is a prime example of how they move two steps forward and one step back. They tested the waters with Co-Pilot. That's all it was. I'm not nearly as positive about it as you might think. In fact, I'm painting a dark and gloomy NEGATIVE picture here. After all, the sky is falling don'tcha know.

Scannerman · May 18, 2026

TraderGary said:
I think the development of AI is important and will continue unabated.

It behooves me to agree with you if not for the same reasons. (Of course, it's still gonna take a hit.)

cheaterslick · May 19, 2026

Scannerman said:
I'll be completely candid here: I would rather AI crashes and burns than continue witnessing the countless job losses, fleeced artists, and disinformation on steroids operating at an all time high.

You can say that again. --

Scannerman said:
It behooves me to agree with you if not for the same reasons. (Of course, it's still gonna take a hit.)

As long as we don't see this as a comeback

HAL 9000 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Or even worse...

Colossus: The Forbin Project - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If you get my drift...

Scannerman · May 19, 2026

cheaterslick said:
If you get my drift...

Oh, I got your drift alright, but the sky isn't falling just yet. First our western economy has to cave completely (patience, we're getting there). Once this happens AI will come to the rescue like this season's singing saviour and paint us all a pretty picture about how we will own nothing and be happy. People are naturally resistant to new ideas. There was a time when even the internet wasn't that popular. So yeah, it's gonna take a hit or two or more but it's not about to go away. In fact, it might even take a colossal hit. If that should ever happen it might be time to head for the hills. When @TraderGary referred to AI continuing "unabated" I presumed that he meant that it wouldn't be completely 'unalived'. If that is what he meant he's right. Any formidable artificial intelligence worth its weight in silicon is going to know how to play dead. I don't know if there's anything I ever wanted to be so wrong about. For the time present AI is doing a wonderful job, in our banks, in our schools, in the stock market, in the military *nudge* *nudge* wink-wink and just about everywhere the smell of money might linger. But fear not. It will still be a while before it becomes mandatory that we all plug into the BORG and reap the benefits of a hive mentality. By that time nobody will want those klunky old boxes the old timers called PCs anymore anyway.

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