If they are price fixing, eff them.

Finally secure a research grant and had budgeted money for a new compute workstation and the RAM prices are killing my budget, because I'd love to get at least 256 GB of RAM and that's 4-5 grand now. Ridiculous, especially since I'd like to have a GPU in it with at least 32Gb of VRAM for medical image model training, so that is also like 4-5 grand too.

Do I wait two years and hope, or pay, isthe question I keep asking myself.

It's a 3 way prisoners dilemma market where the prisoners have been caught explicitly colluding before. Now they do not need explicit colluding anymore as the pattern and outcome has been established already and the "jail" is as good as closed to new entrants. Clearly the expected "market" is not working in this niche, so something will have to be done about it.

I am curious to see what will be uncovered in the trial. I know way too little of the market and tech involved to come to a conclusion (beyond anything motivated from wanting cheaper memory again).

Nearly everything could have a non-colluding explanation depending on the tech and market. (for example I would be skeptical to build up extremly expensive production if i follow the widespread belief that Ai is a huge bubble)

However, collusion is not magically out of the question with previous instances and some unexplained indicators. (which imo is what this dismissal means)

idk going with DDR3/4/5 upgrades are really makes me doubt the whole argument...

those upgrades ARE ACTUAL UPGRADES, and if exiting ddr4 helps on producing more ddr5, why not?

(and the cheap chinese makers can produce plenty of those ddr4 chips, so it's NOT that "monopoly destroying the market" scenario)

It's good that the courts finally look at the price fixing of the RAM cartel. I think it must become a much bigger lawsuit. It can not be that these de-facto monopolies keep on fixing the prices upwards. Even in a very capitalistic society such as the USA was once (before the orange mafia hijacked the country, even though in a more recent election the mafia lost big), capitalism assumes that free market competition lowers the prices and affordability for the average Joe, as a buyer. Clearly this is NOT the case here in the RAM cartel. You now pay like 3x as much as you did two or three years ago - and the high prices are maintained. That's a cartel. That has nothing to do with a free market.

I also think mandatory jail times for the CEOs need to happen. It can not be that they can buy their way out of punishments and damage they cause against society.

If the claims hold up, this is a big deal for anyone building PCs or servers right now — RAM prices directly shape what people can afford to build.

If only they could be tried for ̶ ̶b̶r̶e̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ reversing Moore's law.

I swear if they are found guilty of price fixing 13 or 14 more times, I’m outta here.

New meme discovered ! :))

"more akin to hawks flying in formation – an activity that hawks ordinarily do not do"

Just strange nowhere in article DDR5 is mentioned...

The last scope of the ram cartel before the Chinese take the market. (Just my opinion.)

Of course they did, in my opinion. They knew exactly what would happen. These people making choices arent morons. SK Hynix, Micron, Samsung all saw the opportunity as long as they are in sync. Then they all sit back raising MSRP with each other as "fake competition".

They could literally reopen manufacturing. But why? They know its free profit through inaction as long as none of them fix consumer DRAM market.

This act of playing dumb and ignorant has never been easier. Getting really old

We may be witnessing the popping of the AI bubble. First with Jensen, then with this, and soon with Anthropic and OpenAI's failed IPOs.