RAM is so expensive, Samsung won't even sell it to Samsung

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2998935/ram-is-so-expensive-samsung-wont-even-sell-it-to-samsung.html

48•sethops1•1h ago

Comments

DocTomoe•35m ago

I feel we have a RAM price surge every four years. The excuses change, but it's always when we see a generation switch to the next gen of DDR. Which makes me believe it's not AI, or graphics cards, or crypto, or gaming, or one of the billion other conceivable reasons, but price-gouging when new standards emerge and production capacity is still limited. Which would be much harder to justify than 'the AI/Crypto/Gaming folks (who no-one likes) are sweeping the market...'

JKCalhoun•33m ago

Regardless of whether it is Crypto/AI/etc., this would seem to be wake-up call #2. We're finding the strangle-points in our "economy"—will we do anything about it? A single fab in Phoenix would seem inadequate?

baiwl•13m ago

What will we do with that fab in two years when nobody needs that excess RAM?

jacquesm•12m ago

There has never been 'an excess of RAM', the market has always absorbed what was available.

jacquesm•13m ago

If 'the West' would be half as smart as they claim to be there would be many more fabs in friendly territory. Stick a couple in Australia and NZ too for good measure, it is just too critical of a resource now.

jacquesm•14m ago

Why is this downvoted, this is not the first time I've heard that opinion expressed and every time it happens there is more evidence that maybe there is something to it. I've been following the DRAM market since the 4164 was the hot new thing and it cost - not kidding - $300 for 8 of these which would give you all of 64K RAM. Over the years I've seen the price surge multiple times and usually there was some kind of hard to verify reason attached to it. From flooded factories to problems with new nodes and a whole slew of other issues.

RAM being a staple of the computing industry you have to wonder if there aren't people cleaning up on this, it would be super easy to create an artificial shortage given the low number of players in this market. In contrast, say the price of gasoline, has been remarkably steady with one notable outlier with a very easy to verify and direct cause.

zorked•12m ago

This industry has a history of forming cartels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal

muvlon•5m ago

But we're not currently switching to a next gen of DDR. DDR5 has been around for several years, DDR6 won't be here before 2027. We're right in the middle of DDR5's life cycle.

That is not to say there is no price-fixing going on, just that I really can't see a correlation with DDR generations.

itopaloglu83•20m ago

The manufacturers are willing to quadruple the prices for the foreseeable future but not change their manufacturing quotes a bit.

So much for open markets, somebody must check their books and manufacturing schedules.

dgacmu•8m ago

In their defense, how many $20 billion fabs do you want to build in response to the AI ... (revolution|bubble|other words)? It seems very, very difficult to predict how long DRAM demand will remain this elevated, and I am glad that's not my call to make.

It's dangerous for them in both directions: Overbuilding capacity if the boom busts vs. leaving themselves vulnerable to a competitor who builds out if the boom is sustained. Glad I don't have to make that decision. :)

arijun•6m ago

If it’s an AI bubble, it would be stupid to open new manufacturing capacity right now. Spend years and billions spinning up a new fab, only to have the bottom of the market drop out as soon as it comes online.

jsheard•18m ago

To be fair, Samsung's divisions having guns pointed at each other is nothing new. This is the same conglomerate that will make two versions of the same phone with different processors so they can play their own silicon division against third party competitors.

morcus•17m ago

> two versions of the same phone with different processors

That's hilarious, which phone is this?

namibj•15m ago

Several high end Galaxy S's AFAIK.

grincek•12m ago

This is the case as recent as of S24, phones can come with exynos or snapdragon, with exynos usually featuring worse performance and battery life

petcat•12m ago

Basically every Galaxy phone comes in two versions. One with Exynos and one with Snapdragon. It's regional though. US always gets the Snapdragon phones while Europe and mostly Asia gets the Exynos version.

My understanding is that the Exynos is inferior in a lot of ways, but also cheaper.

muvlon•10m ago

Not one phone, they did this all over the place. Their flagship line did this starting with the Galaxy S7 all the way up to Galaxy S24. Only the most recent Galaxy S25 is Qualcomm Snapdragon only, supposedly because their own Exynos couldn't hit volume production fast enough.

lkramer•14m ago

To be honest, this actually sounds kinda healthy.

awongh•13m ago

This seems to be for chips put in phones in 2026? I thought these orders were booked further in advance, or is that only for processors?

shevy-java•12m ago

AI companies must compensate us for this outrage.

A few hours ago I looked at the RAM prices. I bought some DDR4, 32GB only, about a year or two ago. I kid you not - the local price here is now 2.5 times as it was back in 2023 or so, give or take.

I want my money back, OpenAI!

nickjj•11m ago

I'm running a box I put together in 2014 with an i5-4460 (3.2ghz), 16 GB of RAM, GeForce 750ti, first gen SSD, ASRock H97M Pro4 motherboard with a reasonable PSU, case and a number of fans. All of that parted out at the time was $700.

I've never been more fearful of components breaking than current day. With GPU and now memory prices being crazy, I hope I never have to upgrade.

I don't know how but the box is still great for every day web development with heavy Docker usage, video recording / editing with a 4k monitor and 2nd 1440p monitor hooked up. Minor gaming is ok too, for example I picked up Silksong last week, it runs very well at 2560x1440.

For general computer usage, SSDs really were a once in a generation "holy shit, this upgrade makes a real difference" thing.

Barathkanna•4m ago

I agree with you on SSDs, that was the last upgrade that felt like flipping the “modern computer” switch overnight. Everything since has been incremental unless you’re doing ML or high-end gaming.

Barathkanna•7m ago

When RAM gets so expensive that even Samsung won’t buy Samsung from Samsung, you know the market has officially entered comic mode. At this rate their next quarterly report is just going to be one division sending the other an IOU.

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Comments

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Average DRAM price in USD over last 18 months

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Show HN: I built a dashboard to compare mortgage rates across 120 credit unions

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