HBM is also DRAM. I also think it's kind of a weak argument to say that them discontinuing ddr3 (which while in use still today in industrial/embedded was on the way out for consumers 10 years ago) and ddr4 which last had consumer CPUs for it 3 years ago is meaningful. What we need now is ddr5. Turning off the old fabs and moving those resources including people to ddr5 is a good thing. That's not price fixing. It's possible price fixing is in play, but discontinuing products people objectively don't use as much anymore isn't it.

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cosmic_cheese 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Switching off DDR3 manufacturing I can understand, but DDR4 machines are still quite relevant and usable… Ryzen 5000 series boxes for example don’t feel meaningfully weaker than they did when new. My 5950X tower certainly doesn’t, and it’d really be nice to be able to upgrade its RAM should I need to because it will continue to be useful for quite some time.

AMD just re-released their 5800X3D for AM4 board users who wish to upgrade which is further evidence that shutting off DDR4 production is premature.

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zarzavat 41 minutes ago | parent [-]

They're running a business not a charity. Their job is to manufacture what the market as a whole demands. If they can make more money making HBM than DDR4 then they have to make HBM. Why would a business go out of its way to make less money?

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cosmic_cheese 36 minutes ago | parent [-]

1. The AI bubble is an insane distortion and the gravy train isn’t going to last forever. Betting the farm on everlasting datacenter demand is myopic.

2. In a healthy, competitive market there would be smaller manufacturers that’d be happy to take up the big guys’ discarded business.

	▲	iwontberude 29 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		People will remember these shenanigans and will buy Apple after getting ripped off by PC manufacturers.

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pdimitar 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Dropping DDR-4 is anything but meaningful. It'll easily last 10 more years, machines from this gen are still much more affordable and quite powerful. In fact for most dev and gaming workflows the difference between the DDR-4 and DDR-5 generation of hardware is more or less negligible. I am exaggerating a bit -- but really, not too much.

Of course it might be a ploy to sheep-herd consumers and companies towards the expensive DDR-5. I would not put that below the ring of RAM producers.

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gruez 3 hours ago | parent [-]

>Dropping DDR-4 is anything but meaningful. It'll easily last 10 more years, machines from this gen are still much more affordable and quite powerful. In fact for most dev and gaming workflows the difference between the DDR-4 and DDR-5 generation of hardware is more or less negligible. I am exaggerating a bit -- but really, not too much.

How much % of the DRAM market do you think is made from computer enthusiasts upgrading their Zen 1/2 CPUs to Zen 3? Note intel and AMD both switched to DDR5 well before the exit from DDR3/DDR4 ("2024-2025", according to the complaint).

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cosmic_cheese 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Note though that for Intel, the first gen of DDR5 CPUs also supported DDR4, and many buyers bought the DDR4 versions of their boards because at that point DDR5 RAM was much more expensive for gains that were marginal at best, which effectively makes Intel’s following generation of DDR5 CPUs the actual transition point.

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pdimitar 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The mere "enthusiast" word in your question suggests the percent is not too big. But I am not sure I get your point -- elaborate, please?

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gruez 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The point is that just because there's a handful of people (relatively speaking) looking to buy more RAM to upgrade their last gen systems, doesn't mean there's robust demand for DRAM manufacturers to keep DDR4 manufacturing lines going. It's like arguing Sony shouldn't have exited the CRT business because there's retro enthusiasts on youtube scouring the earth for CRT monitors.

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pdimitar 4 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

For the reasons stated above -- that DDR5-gen hardware is expensive right now -- I'd think the DDR4-gen market will remain alive for quite a big longer. Though that's likely much more on the second-hand market side of things.

While I wouldn't necessarily agree with "a handful of people", the fact is that neither of us can prove their lean -- so no point pursuing that argument thread.

So you might be right that it's a pure numbers/statistics decision. Or I might be right that they want to herd people into the more expensive hardware while forcing them to do so by phasing out production of the cheaper hardware.

No way to truly know IMO. We are exchanging hypotheses.

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cosmic_cheese 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I’m not sure that comparison makes much sense. By the time CRTs were phased out, demand was down to almost nothing and what little existed was confined to the extreme budget market. While I don’t have industry insights or anything I don’t think demand for DDR4 is anywhere near the bottom yet, and the remaining demand is centered on premium product (nobody running cheap DDR4 is upgrading). In a more normal market would be more than enough to justify continued production for several more years.

DDR4 production is likely still quite profitable, just not drowning-in-money AI-bubble profitable. If smaller foundries existed they’d be happy to take up the business.

Maybe really what needs to happen is some busting up of the giants…

	▲	ksec 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There is a minimum amount of production volume for it to fit the price equation. If the market doesn't have that demand, it is fundamentally no different to CRT. Otherwise they could continue to make DDR4 at a higher cost and sold at a higher price to which people will complain price fixing again.

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bogwog an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

It's easy to see why your argument is wrong with a simple hypothetical: what if they were still making DDR4 today? Would people still buy it?

The answer is an obvious "fuck yeah", even if you ignore the DDR5 price gouging. People will buy it because people still have DDR4 hardware, and that hardware is still extremely relevant.

So if there's a market for it, but none of the suppliers are trying to sell to it... Wtf is happening? Basic capitalism logic says any rational supplier would sell DDR4 for easy profits, meeting an unmet demand. That it isn't happen points to some kind of collusion, IMO.

	▲	revolvingthrow an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Because the market pays less for DDR4 than for HBM (or DDR5), and since HBM is heavily modified, vertically stacked DRAM, it competes for the same raw inputs and fab space than DDR4 used. If I can produce DDR4 for modest profit or HBM for a lot more profit I will obviously produce HBM. And given physical realities producing HBM takes from existing DDR4 production capacity. Worse still, it takes roughly 3GB of ram to produce 1GB of hbm iirc.
	▲	dcrazy an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> People will buy it because people still have DDR4 hardware The question is whether there’s enough meaningful demand for aftermarket DDR4 upgrades to make it worthwhile to a manufacturer to keep producing DDR4 instead of switching to HBM and DDR5. Micron claimed retail is a rounding error, a market not worth serving. So you’d presumably need to find industrial buyers who would be willing to buy DDR4.
	▲	microgpt an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Basic capitalism logic is that if you think it's stupid, you put your money where your mouth is, set up a DRAM fab, and get rich.