| ▲ | MPSimmons an hour ago |
| This reminds me of the recent LaurieWired video presenting a hypothetical of, "what if we stopped making CPUs": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2OJFqs8bUk Spoiler, but the answer is basically that old hardware rules the day because it lasts longer and is more reliable of timespans of decades. DDR5 32GB is currently going for ~$330 on Amazon DDR4 32GB is currently going for ~$130 on Amazon DDR3 32GB is currently going for ~50 on Amazon (4x8GB) For anyone where cost is a concern, using older hardware seems like a particularly easy choice, especially if a person is comfortable with a Linux environment, since the massive droves of recently retired Windows 10 incompatible hardware works great with your Linux distro of choice. |
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| ▲ | fullstop an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| If everyone went for DDR4 and DDR3, surely the cost would go up. There is no additional supply there, as they are no longer being made. |
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| ▲ | phil21 31 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Currently trying to source a large amount of DDR4 to upgrade a 3 year old fleet of servers at a very unfortunate time. It's very difficult to source in quantity, and is going up in price more or less daily at this point. Vendor quotes are good for hours, not days when you can find it. | | |
| ▲ | fullstop 28 minutes ago | parent [-] | | We're looking to buy 1TB of DDR5 for a large database server. I'm pretty sure that we're just going to pay the premium and move on. | | |
| ▲ | georgeburdell 11 minutes ago | parent [-] | | And that’s why everybody’s B2B these days. The decision-making people at companies are not spending their own money |
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| ▲ | acdha an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | At some point that’s true, but don’t they run the n-1 or 2 generation production lines for years after the next generation launches? There’s a significant capital investment there and my understanding is that the cost goes down significantly over the lifetime as they dial in the process so even though the price is lower it’s still profitable. | | |
| ▲ | mlyle 17 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | This is only true as long as there's enough of a market left. You tend to end up with oversupply and excessive inventory during the transition, and that pushes profit margins negative and removes all the supply pretty quickly. | |
| ▲ | fullstop 43 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Unless plans have changed, the foundries making DDR4 are winding down, with the last shipments going out as we speak. |
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| ▲ | MPSimmons an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Undoubtably the cost would go up, but nobody is building out datacenters full of DDR4, either, so I don't figure it would go up nearly as much as DDR5 is right now. | | |
| ▲ | fullstop an hour ago | parent [-] | | https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/ You can see the cost rise of DDR4 here. | | |
| ▲ | MPSimmons 42 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Awesome charts, thanks! I think it bears out that the multiplier for older hardware isn't as extreme as the newer hardware, right? | | |
| ▲ | fullstop 32 minutes ago | parent [-] | | ~2.8x for DDR4, ~3.6x for DDR5. DDR5 is still being made, though, so it will be interesting to see how it changes in the future. Either way, it's going to be a long few years at the least. | | |
| ▲ | oskarkk 17 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Unless the AI bubble pops. | | |
| ▲ | bombcar 13 minutes ago | parent [-] | | One possible outcome is the remaining memory manufacturers have dedicated all their capacity for AI and when the bubble pops, they lose their customer and they go out of business too. |
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| ▲ | parineum 34 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's the Avarage price for new DDR4 which has dwindling supply. Meanwhile used DDR4 is being retired in both desktops and data centers. | | |
| ▲ | fullstop 27 minutes ago | parent [-] | | DDR4 production is winding down or done. Only "new old stock" will remain, or used DDR4 modules. Good luck buying that in quantity. |
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| ▲ | thedangler 13 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Nice, My current PC uses DDR4
Time to dust off my 2012 PC and put Linux on it. |
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| ▲ | bullen an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yes, DDR3 is the lowest CAS latency and lasts ALOT longer. Just like SSDs from 2010 have 100.000 writes per bit instead of below 10.000. CPUs might even follow the same durability pattern but that remains to be seen. Keep your old machines alive and backed up! |
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| ▲ | mrob 29 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | CAS latency is specified in cycles and clock rates are increasing, so despite the number getting bigger there's actually been a small improvement in latency with each generation. | |
| ▲ | hajile 20 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | CAS latency doesn't matter so much as ns of total random-access latency and the raw clockspeed of the individual RAM cells. If you are accessing the same cell repeatedly, RAM hasn't gotten faster in years (around DDR2 IIRC). |
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| ▲ | diabllicseagull an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| a 2x16 ddr4 kit I bought in 2020 for $160 is now $220. older memory is relatively cheap but not cheaper than before at all. |
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| ▲ | christkv an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| A friend built a new rig and went with DDR4 and a 5800x3d just because of this as he needed a lot of ram. |
