This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Aug 2024, I purchased 32gb of RAM for $109. That same kit today would cost me $509. Sept 2025 I got a 250gb nvme for $33 that is now around $85. The inflation is real.
RAM has always gone through huge price cycles as long as I can remember. You buy when it is good value then don't when it goes up. The industry always responded to high prices by building too much capacity so after a few years the prices all crashed.
This time it feels different. We don't have the huge diversity of producers we once did. The 3 big remaining players clearly operate as something like a cartel. I doubt they are responding to current shortages with huge new fab investments.
Lots of PC part manufacturers and retailers aren't going to make it through to the over side of this. I think it could lead to massive long term changes for the DIY market.
1gb of ram costs more than 1 hour of minimum wage
Devs just need to optimize their software. My i5 750 still works just fine with a 1060 and 16gb ram. Their's thousand of great games to play, fuck the aaa.
Nah. Fuck AI companies causing the shortage. They should stop delaying the inevitable bubble crash and suffer real consequences.
I mean sure, fuck all those AI business. But the idea that we always need more powerful hardware is a consumerism illusion.
I quite like the idea of people just not engaging with this.
Can't play the latest AAA because I can't afford the equipment for it? No worries, there's literally thousands of other games out there.
More realistically though, people will end up subbing to a streaming service, which is almost certainly what the companies would prefer.
I'm mostly just concerned on what I'll do if a piece of hardware dies or corrupts at this point.
Piracy and giving them nothing is the answer
RETURN TO THE OLD WAYS
That's what I do for new games now, fuck $100 for a linear single player game. I implore all studios to use Denuvo as it's the best DRM on the market 😉
WAY AHEAD OF YOU MATEY
You can't pirate ram though
Oh, have I got news for you...
zswap enters the chat
Though in fairness, it is free.
If you've got a PC built in the last few years you can play them anyway.
Mostly this affects people whose PCs are pretty old already :/ but like if you've got an AM4 build you can just upgrade your GPU and maybe CPU if necessary and keep your good ol' DDR4. AM4 truly the GOAT of CPU sockets in terms of longevity.
This is so true.
My PC I built has parts from as far as 12 yrs ago and day to day tasks go very smoothly especially since I switched to Linux. I haven't bought a newly released game from a big publisher since Borderlands 3 and that ran fine. Most recent indie games still run well too.
I'm currently planning on upgrading with used parts from 2020 ish not because I need to, but because I'd like to play some games from 2010-2020 in medium-to-high graphic settings and hopefully make it last another decade.
Chasing AAA highest setting has always been an expensive hobby, but not it's straight up luxury that only those with a lot of disposable income or make a living off gaming can afford. And honestly that's fine because there are just so many good games out there that don't require the specs.
or maybe, just maybe... You could, are you ready for this idea...?
Play on medium settings !!!GASP!!! Or worse, play it at 1080!
Idiot me bought a 4k laptop and be fucked if I'm not gonna use every single pixel on that screen (even if I can't tell a difference between 1440 and 4k)
I have a 16gb rx6800.... playing stardew valley lol
I'm looking for 64 GB (4x16) DDR4-2400 SODIMM. It is going to run me like 350 bucks... For used modules.
Absolutely ridiculous.
Upgraded my homelab with 256GB right before the prices went nuts. Lucky me.
But before I bought the best GPU at the time for absolute peak-price, adamant it would rise further and never going back.
So...universe equalized for me. For now.
HDDs have doubled in price recently too. Not a good time to try building a computer.
Building a computer like 5 years from now will be a weird experience because you will buy most parts from brands that you have never heard of. Very few of the manufacturers we know today will still be around by that time.
They will have Chinese RAM by then, so yeah, its going to be the random made up Amazon/Temu Chinese brands.
AmzRamBar24
Which is the same thing as the GOODKINDSTICK that everyone says is really good, but only if you get the V3.65 from 2025, the new stuff is garbage.
And you have to be careful because their versioning is broken. Version 5 is older than 3.
Much more than doubled. Most high-TB drives are not in stock anywhere, and even if you find a drive, the best deals are around $26-28/TB for used drives, whereas before new deals would be $10/TB. If you're looking for a specific new capacity, you may be paying $36-40/TB.
Going back to the 90s when a few megabytes was hundreds of dollars.
That'd be great if software still had the same small footprint it had back then.
I just had to buy a m.2 drive. It cost more than double the same item I bought in 2022. It also cost more than the entire computer it's being installed into! FML.
Yep. A few months ago the 1TB "King fast" m.2 that came in a $150 refurb tinyQ died. Replacement drive was... I want to say $160? (Locally, needed it ASAP)
I should've opened the case up when I got the PC and noticed the obvious knock off/garbage SSD but I can't honestly say I'm surprised.
