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.


AM4 is gonna last until the 2030s at this rate…
With how good my 5600x still performs, I could very well see it lasting that long. Assuming it doesn’t randomly kill itself after a few years like my previous ryzen 5.
I was silly and got myself a 5950X. But I feel less silly about it now tbh. It’s gonna become my new homelab core whenever I get the chance to do a new gaming build again that’s not a high 4-figure investment.
Totally worth it with how good ryzens have held up performance wise. Unless you’re doing some really CPU heavy stuff or have a beast of a GPU, you probably won’t get bottlenecked by the CPU for at least 5 more years.
Unless you’re using windows in your homelab. I assume you’re not since you have a home lab.
Nope - proxmox is the way
5800x3d was probably my best cpu purchase of all time, damn
Why wouldn’t it?
In a sane world, the limitations of a CPU socket would be reached, and then newer SKUs would no longer be release and all stock for prospective builders would be second hand.
That’s clearly not the case here. AM4 continues to get new CPU releases and parts are still available new from retail, years after the support officially ending. That’s a good thing for variety and entry level machines, but such dependency means a future CPU could be limited in featureset/performance if it releases on AM4 instead of AM5, which there may be enough demand to force designers to downgrade chips for AM4 compatibility.
The good thing about new AM4 boards being available at this point in time is you have options to keep older hardware running. Usually the CPU and memory will out-survive motherboard. Much like those new Chinese motherboards supporting 4th and 6th gen Intel CPUs, this is great for longevity and reduces how much production is needed
I’d argue that it would be best if computers were more like cars, a new platform gets released each decade or so, and small improvements are made to individual parts but the parts are largely interchangable within the platform and produced for a decade or two before production is retired. More interchangable parts, slower release cycle and more opportunities for repair instead of replacement