WTF Just Happened? | The Corrupt Memory Industry & Micron

cross-posted from: https://piefed.ca/c/technology/p/377579/wtf-just-happened-the-corrupt-memory-industry-micron

Invidious
Youtube

Technology @lemmy.world

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Remember how graphics card prices tripled several years ago, and never came back to sane prices?
Sigh.
- I remember somebody stole like a whole truck of graphics cards. Stealing shit gonna be a very lucrative business as everything gets more expensive and most law enforcement are busy tackling us citizen nurses on their way to work.
  
  Wake up babe, new Fast & Furious plot just dropped
- I feel your pain :(
- Yeah, but that affected only gamers, now it's all computer nerds (corpos can switch to thin clients).
  
  Only? That makes it seem as though gaming were a negligible fraction of the world's entertainment time. It wouldn't surprise me if it surpassed movies before long, if it hasn't already.
  I think I see your point though: RAM prices affect even more people than that.
  
  Thin clients still require ram and storage at the terminals and lots of both at the server. If a thin client deployment is not already in place, it will be a huge financial burden for corporations from hardware deployment as well as time lost to employees learning process changes. This is the exact reason large organizations slow roll deployments instead of making fast changes.
  
  If it stays high it well affect everything that uses RAM.

I love GN for what they do, but I just can't get into the video format for tech hardware news or reviews.
For some topics, I totally understand the strength of the video format, but for others it just doesn't make sense to me. A review is much quicker to process with commentary text and relevant charts for benchmarking. I would argue the same for less in-depth news and analysis.
I also wish GN had a peetrube channel!
- They also have a website with a written report for most videos, like this one for the Linux benchmarking video: https://gamersnexus.net/gpus/rip-windows-linux-gpu-gaming-benchmarks-bazzite
  
  I know, most of their content isn't published in text form though.
- Is there an actual incentive for any for-profit channel to have a peertube channel? It seems like it would just reduce engagement that they actually get paid for.
  
  You could still do sponsorships and Patreon, which for quite a few YouTubers are the main revenue sources. But of course if viewers don't demand it there is no incentive to switch either.
  
  Couldn't they do both YouTube and another means of distribution?
- The best reason to watch his very long videos is if you like his specific kinda sarcasm and energy. Which, I do, but it is very whiny.
- Yeah I agree. I love GN for what they do but I never watch their videos because I find the formats quite bad. Too long, boring, and designed so you can’t just skip to the end like HUB for example.
- What's up fellow video hater?
  Let me make a wild guess - you are over the age of 35, am I correct?
  
  How did you guess? :)
  
  I like him and the format, am over 35. 🙋‍♂️

If building a PC does in fact get too expensive for individuals, I wonder what that will do for the sale of the Steam Machine which should (theoretically) get people into PC gaming for much cheaper. Maybe all-in-one pre-built PC's like the steam machine become the norm...idk
- I wouldn't mind if this led to devs stopping the constant push for heavier graphics in games and instead moved to making sure they run well with how upgrading is looking to be less and less feasible for more people.
  
  I think economics would basically push things that way. If most people cannot or will not buy the latest hardware, the investment of 600 million dollars or more into a AAAA game that hardly anyone can run won't happen.
  
  I also think this would be positive honestly
- Why is the steam machine not going to be subject to the same costs? Why then would we believe that valve will just eat that?
  
  The assumption is that Valve made their procurement deals before the sudden price hikes, in which case the costs might actually be sane until the deal runs out and they need to renegotiate prices.
  
  Your intuition is correct that the steam machine will go up in price but I think It'll still have an edge over building your own PC for a couple of reasons:
  Valve has economies of scale and can make contracts directly with Dram manufacturers/distributers
  The Steam Machine is just already cheaper to make than a pre-built because it has a custom APU (rather than a standalone graphics card). Not to mention running Linux means not having to pay for a windows licence
  The Steam Machine only has 16 GB of RAM. Most everyone I know building gaming PCs with DDR5 are using 32 GB
  The steam machine is not a cutting edge device, but its lower end capabilities may become normalised if building a new PC becomes cost prohibitive. It may force the whole gaming industry to take a step back for a few years. And I mean, the steam Machine can play Cyberpunk 2077 at 4k 60 fps with FSR upscaling so its got enough performance for lots of consumers
  
  Same as consoles. Sell at a loss to increase game sales and earn more on the backend.
- It's an interesting scenario.
  I'd posit that the possibility mostly depends on the aquisition of RAM by Valve before the memory market implosion.
  If Valve is able to successfully sell Steam Machines then other SIs and manufacturers might revisit the gaming market.
  Based on Micron's action of exiting the consumer market (by killing off their Crucial division) I'd imagine that most manufaturers are considering doing the same as the demand from AI hyperscalers has become obnoxiously enticing for most corporate entities.
- I wonder what that will do for the sale of the Steam Machine which should (theoretically) get people into PC gaming for much cheaper.
  Valve said they won't subsidise the cost of the Steam Machine, it will be roughly the same price as a regular PC.
  
  I think that quote says it would be cost competitive with equivalent PC parts, which is cheaper than buying a prebuilt computer, fwiw. (And you'll get a compact GabeCube instead of a big tower).
  I expect GabeCubes might be my kiddos first desktops. CachyOS should run like a dream on 'em, so they'll work great as both computers and entry-level gaming rigs.

The explanation from this article made more sense to me: Sam Altman’s Dirty DRAM Deal, than DRAM manufacturers colluding to decommoditize PC computing.
That is not to say they did not willingly take advantage of the situation, they definitely did.
I also agree with GN that micron taking public money and then doing something against the public interest is a bad thing.

"corrupt industry" is a bit redundant, isn't it?
Show me an industry that isn't built, from foundation to the tip of the pyramid, out of blocks of condensed corruption. Show me one that has not perpetrated unimaginable horrors on uncountable numbers of humans for generations.
- Hmmmm, maybe like the medical device startup industry?
  I did electronics prototyping for a number of years with a lot of medical device startups and pretty most of them genuinely just wanted to help peoples' quality of life.
  
  That's not really an industry though. Industry is established. A startup is by definition not that. Start ups very quickly follow in their parents footsteps or are bought out.

OPEC : 1973 :: JEDEC : 2025

Corrupted memory? Happens a lot with my RAM. How unfortunate their memory has corrupted.

Thank you for including the YouTube link so that my phone will properly open in libretube

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