Mark Tyson Social Links Navigation News Editor Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
gamerk316 A lot of these discussions have been focused on the highest-end RAM kits; I'm wondering if some of the more discount ones aren't seeing as much of a price premium put on them. But yeah, until the AI bubble pops, RAM could well become more expensive then most mid-range GPUs out there, which is shocking given how cheap RAM has been the past decade or so. Reply
thestryker gamerk316 said: I'm wondering if some of the more discount ones aren't seeing as much of a price premium put on them. Nope even 32GB JEDEC kits (such as DDR5-4800 CL40) aren't safe and are over $200 (these would have been around $80 a couple of months ago). Reply
DougMcC AI bubble pop hopers are deluded. AI spending is baked in for at least 5+ years. The pop is not in sight. E.g. my company has committed spending to at least that far in the future because there is a long list of stuff for us to do with AI that will advance the business. Reply
ravewulf DougMcC said: AI bubble pop hopers are deluded. AI spending is baked in for at least 5+ years. The pop is not in sight. E.g. my company has committed spending to at least that far in the future because there is a long list of stuff for us to do with AI that will advance the business. That kind of thinking is no different than in any other bubble Reply
DiegoSynth DougMcC said: AI bubble pop hopers are deluded. AI spending is baked in for at least 5+ years. The pop is not in sight. E.g. my company has committed spending to at least that far in the future because there is a long list of stuff for us to do with AI that will advance the business. Let's see: what has AI given so far? How much money and resources have been invested for that? How many people were fired? Are companies being run by AI? Why are managers needed but employees fired? Does this all add up? Is AI drawing better than a human? No. Is AI programming better than a human? No. Is AI creating anything? No. Can AI be trusted with decisions? No. Are AI "accelerated" GPUs (with fake frames and blurry scaling) better than real horsepower (hardware)? No. Is AI finite? Yes, very much. Not saying it's useless: it speeds up things such as translations, summaries, searches, data gathering, etc. It helps with calculations (hence GPU stuff, but this is a workaround covering for greed on hardware production). It helps with sketches, concepts and prototypes, but it's no more than a drafting tool. Investing billions and trillions on it, messing up the environment and firing everyone because of it is total idiocracy, regardless of the outcome. And everything that goes up too high ends up having a quite big fall. Reply
LordVile DougMcC said: AI bubble pop hopers are deluded. AI spending is baked in for at least 5+ years. The pop is not in sight. E.g. my company has committed spending to at least that far in the future because there is a long list of stuff for us to do with AI that will advance the business. I hope you're keeping your CV up to date Reply
DougMcC LordVile said: I hope you're keeping your CV up to date No need. My company has about a decade of revenue growth already committed. The worst case for me at this point is that an AI selloff causes a stock price drop, affording me a massive upside buy opportunity. Reply
DougMcC DiegoSynth said: Let's see: what has AI given so far? How much money and resources have been invested for that? How many people were fired? Are companies being run by AI? Why are managers needed but employees fired? Does this all add up? Is AI drawing better than a human? No. Is AI programming better than a human? No. Is AI creating anything? No. Can AI be trusted with decisions? No. Are AI "accelerated" GPUs (with fake frames and blurry scaling) better than real horsepower (hardware)? No. Is AI finite? Yes, very much. Not saying it's useless: it speeds up things such as translations, summaries, searches, data gathering, etc. It helps with calculations (hence GPU stuff, but this is a workaround covering for greed on hardware production). It helps with sketches, concepts and prototypes, but it's no more than a drafting tool. Investing billions and trillions on it, messing up the environment and firing everyone because of it is total idiocracy, regardless of the outcome. And everything that goes up too high ends up having a quite big fall. AI drawing is better than _most_ humans. Ai programming is better than _most_ humans. AI is creating lots of stuff, but maybe your definition of 'creating' is weird. Can AI be trusted with decisions. Yes. And it is. GPU frame fuzziness: probably you have a point here, but I have no experience with it. Is AI finite? Yeah, obviously. Reply
DougMcC ravewulf said: That kind of thinking is no different than in any other bubble Well, i'd contrast it with the dotcom bubble where revenues were nowhere in sight. AI is actually bringing in loads of money, just not enough to be profitable, yet. VS dotcom where pets.com made no money and had no pathway to make money yet was valued crazy high. Reply
thestryker DougMcC said: Well, i'd contrast it with the dotcom bubble where revenues were nowhere in sight. AI is actually bringing in loads of money, just not enough to be profitable, yet. VS dotcom where pets.com made no money and had no pathway to make money yet was valued crazy high. AI is not making loads of money when compared to the expenditures. There is also no pathway to actually pay for it either as it's not getting cheaper to scale out. There's a reason why all of the big established money is starting to protect itself and back away from AI. This is not to say that there aren't any positives or business models where it slots in simply that the industry taken in entirety is a house of cards. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ram/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ram/epic-games-ceo-tim-sweeney-says-ram-pricing-crisis-isnt-going-away-anytime-soon-fortnite-boss-says-crunch-will-be-a-real-problem-for-high-end-gaming-for-several-years#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- Newegg bundle puts a bow on a Core Ultra 7 265K, 32GB of DDR5, and more for $610 — get most of a PC build for the price of 64GB of RAM
- Newegg's Black Friday sale is on — new deals are unlocked every day
- Intel Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs arrive with native DDR5-7200 CUDIMM support — 12.5% higher speeds than initial Arrow Lake chips
- TSMC says advanced‑node capacity falls ‘about three times short’ of AI demand — company's wafer capacity is 'still not enough' as demand continues to rise
- Nvidia says it’s ‘delighted’ with Google’s success, but backhanded compliment says it is ‘the only platform that runs every AI model’ — statement comes soon aft
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.