While this seems to be localized, this is still a crazy trend.
I am glad I built a relatively high end desktop in late 2020 (even though prices for everything felt very high). Things look direfor the DIY desktop segment.
Every few years we see some bullshit that causes a massive increase in dram prices.
In modern times the western world has an army of scalpers that are eager to buy up things with limited supply and flip them. News hits that dram is increasing and the scalpers RUN to the digital stores as well as the brick and mortar stores to buy up supply which increases prices (temporarily) until there is too much stock held up in their hands to sell at inflated prices and things start coming down. We’ve seen this over, and over, and over again with GPUs, new CPU releases… memory is just the next headline for the scalpers to jump on. Even non-scalpers panic buy. These bubbles really aren’t lasting like they used to either, but once they go up the retailers exploit it too.
Memory production is not down at all based on what’s in the news. There’s no disaster this time. HBM production has been getting massive investment because that’s the memory used in enterprise ML and has the biggest profit margins. Manufacturers aren’t upping non-hbm production because they know if they do they will be left holding the bag - selling 100% of production and just raising prices is quite profitable - and when the temporary bullshit subsides, normal price is still profitable and you never risked anything at all.
Anyway… Taiwan having stores bundling motherboards with dram is no different than every single store bundling 5090 and 9070xt with the motherboards and other internals that they can’t sell, like happened for about six months starting around this time last year in the US… and it happened with the 5950x, 5800x3d, 9800x3d… and so many other new ‘hot’ hardware releases in recent times.
It sucks to be in the market for a new system right now. GPU prices are kind of plummeting though, and $300 more for ram is about on par with $300 extra for a scalped 9070xt, 5080, or 5070ti… and still way below a $3000-5000 5090 from almost year ago.
Memory makers have no plans to increase RAM production despite crushing memory shortages — ‘modest’ 2026 increase predicted as DRAM makers hedge their AI bets
IIRC from past reading, they ramped up capacity during a prior shortage like a decade back or something and then ate a bunch of losses when the shortage ended.
Hmm.
Looks like there might have been a more-recent glut than that:
Samsung to extend production cuts after $7 billion chip loss in first half
July 27, 2023 12:18 AM PDT Updated July 27, 2023
SEOUL, July 27 (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics said the worst is over for the global memory chip market but announced plans to extend production cuts because a demand recovery is largely constrained to high-end chips used in artificial intelligence.
The move underscores the unprecedented semiconductor downturn that led the South Korean firm to incur a record 8.9 trillion won ($7 billion) operating loss from its bread-and-butter chip business in the first six months of this year.
So just over two years ago they were coming out of a money-losing period.
While this seems to be localized, this is still a crazy trend.
I am glad I built a relatively high end desktop in late 2020 (even though prices for everything felt very high). Things look direfor the DIY desktop segment.
Every few years we see some bullshit that causes a massive increase in dram prices.
In modern times the western world has an army of scalpers that are eager to buy up things with limited supply and flip them. News hits that dram is increasing and the scalpers RUN to the digital stores as well as the brick and mortar stores to buy up supply which increases prices (temporarily) until there is too much stock held up in their hands to sell at inflated prices and things start coming down. We’ve seen this over, and over, and over again with GPUs, new CPU releases… memory is just the next headline for the scalpers to jump on. Even non-scalpers panic buy. These bubbles really aren’t lasting like they used to either, but once they go up the retailers exploit it too.
Memory production is not down at all based on what’s in the news. There’s no disaster this time. HBM production has been getting massive investment because that’s the memory used in enterprise ML and has the biggest profit margins. Manufacturers aren’t upping non-hbm production because they know if they do they will be left holding the bag - selling 100% of production and just raising prices is quite profitable - and when the temporary bullshit subsides, normal price is still profitable and you never risked anything at all.
Anyway… Taiwan having stores bundling motherboards with dram is no different than every single store bundling 5090 and 9070xt with the motherboards and other internals that they can’t sell, like happened for about six months starting around this time last year in the US… and it happened with the 5950x, 5800x3d, 9800x3d… and so many other new ‘hot’ hardware releases in recent times.
It sucks to be in the market for a new system right now. GPU prices are kind of plummeting though, and $300 more for ram is about on par with $300 extra for a scalped 9070xt, 5080, or 5070ti… and still way below a $3000-5000 5090 from almost year ago.
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/memory-makers-have-no-plans-to-increase-production-despite-crushing-ram-shortages-modest-2026-increase-predicted-as-dram-makers-hedge-their-ai-bets
This almost seems like collusion in an oligopolistic environment.
gotta artificially maintain the scarcity so prices, and profits, stay sky high.
IIRC from past reading, they ramped up capacity during a prior shortage like a decade back or something and then ate a bunch of losses when the shortage ended.
Hmm.
Looks like there might have been a more-recent glut than that:
https://www.reuters.com/technology/samsung-elec-q2-profit-plunges-95-chip-glut-persists-2023-07-27/
So just over two years ago they were coming out of a money-losing period.
Still, forcing MB & RAM purchases together is a stupid way to address this.
Try a measured ramp up in production; not, “grab all the cash you can in the shortest amount of time possible” method.