During every mining crunch that made GPUs very expensive, we sometimes went backwards on parts of new builds. A used GPU from years ago was often a more-viable choice than a new model in any kind of condition.
Somehow it feels like we got a pretty good deal, in retrospect. (My server has been since replaced, and I can tell you, 256GB of DDR5 ECC was more than that! There's been a further doubling or two of prices since I bought, though. I think I could maybe sell half the RAM and finance the entire server…)
hypfer•41m ago
"Somehow, DDR4 has returned."
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Besides that, wasn't DDR4 good enough for everything we did, anyway?
At least I did not notice all that much of a difference when migrating to my current DDR5 system other than the CPU being massively more performant. Though I am sure that the memory did play some role there.
Clanker claims that the felt absolute latency between decent DDR4 and DDR5 should be similar, while bandwidth might be lower, apparently? Something something CAS latency.
t0mas88•19m ago
If you have some unused extra memory it will be used as disk cache, which also helps in the responsiveness of a desktop. Waiting for the disk is orders of magnitude slower than reading from memory cache.