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Apple now beats Dell at RAM pricing

Regulus67 said:
I purchased 384 GB RAM yesterday... it was installed in a Mac Pro 2019. Cost for the mac with everything was about the current market value of the memory.
And just when I believed I would not pay for more memory šŸ˜‚
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I was thinking about getting a 2019 Mac Pro before RAMageddon started. Mainly because the price crashed and they were still good for Linux and Windows.
 
pshufd said:
The question is will they use their contracts to keep prices low or raise prices like the other companies.

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Micron/Crucial is already apparently hoarding RAM as well.
pshufd said:
The question is will they use their contracts to keep prices low or raise prices like the other companies.

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It is even worse now that Micron is abandoning the consumer market (Crucial) entirely to focus on AI and direct sales.
 
The AI bubble popping can't happen fast enough.

I imagine in the short and medium term Apple will just eat some margin/they are more insulated than many with direct contracts and massive market share, but if this persists for longer they're going to raise prices like everyone else.
 
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quarkysg said:
Apple buys LPDDR DRAM chips, while Dell have to buy SODIMM modules. I guess Apple will be less affected since Apple skips various intermediate manufacturers that add their own margins.
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My guy, the Dell screenshot explicitly "LPDDR5X". It's soldered down chips the same as Macs. šŸ¤¦ā€ā™‚ļø
 
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drrich2 said:
Apple pricing tends to entail a LOT of inertia - resistance to change. Usually that means staying expensive as the larger market cheapens, but lately A.I.-related demand for resource has driven up the prices of RAM and SSDs, from what I understand, so for once Apple's pricing rigidity may keep prices down a bit instead of up.
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Yeah because 95% of the time they are ripping the customers off with massive profits on RAM/SSD since their prices are always inflated.

Don't hold your breath, if this continues for 2-3 more months Apple will raise RAM prices.
 
quarkysg said:
Tho. LPDDR5X does not mean it is not socketed RAM, "my guy".
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It would be extremely unusual to find a laptop with socketed LPDDR. Thus LPDDR does indeed effectively mean "not socketed". From iFixIt (https://www.ifixit.com/News/95078/lpcamm2-memory-is-finally-here):

"The drawback of LPDDR, though, is that it has to be soldered to the main board in close proximity to the processorā€”making repairs and upgrades completely impractical. But why? LPDDR operates at lower voltages compared to DDR, giving it the edge in power efficiency. But, the lower voltage makes signal integrity between the memory and processor challenging, requiring tighter tolerances and shorter trace distancesā€”that is, the farther the signal has to travel, the more voltage you need for a reliable signal. This is why LPDDR is soldered down as close to the processor as possible."

As the article explains, the only way manufacturers are able to practically offer socketed LPDDR is using LPCAMM2 (Low-Power Compression-Attached Memory Module, v. 2).
 
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quarkysg said:
Tho. LPDDR5X does not mean it is not socketed RAM, "my guy".
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theorist9 said:
As the article explains, the only way manufacturers are able to practically offer socketed LPDDR is using LPCAMM2 (Low-Power Compression-Attached Memory Module, v. 2).
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As @theorist9 explains, Dell has recently developed the CAMM socketed RAM (which has since been promoted to industry standard). This standard allows for modular LPDDR5 in laptops, although I don't believe that Dell XPS uses it.

Not that it would matter ā€” if LPDDR pricing is subject to the same massive inflation as DDR5 (and I don't see why it wouldn't, it's the same fabs) ā€” both soldered-on and CAMM-socketed modules will be affected.
 
quarkysg said:
I would assume that only HBM and GDDR memory would be in demand for AI GPUs.
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GDDR is too power-hungry and unreliable for datacenter or workstation use. HMB is the most common GPU RAM for these applications. As @aaronage has pointed out, recent datacenter hardware started to use LPDDR5 as well.

The pricing of all these RAM types are correlated since they are made in the same foundries, and also since product stockpiling and business decisions drive the demand as well.
 
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This is likely to impact everything - analysts have been saying "if you're not buying for a data centre, you are a second tier customer" as far as the memory companies are concerned now due to the silly money AI is splurging on harware.

So far we've see RAM stick prices skyrocket. Before too long we'll start to see the price of laptops and pre-built PCs (Dell, HP etc) increase (or the specifications taking a hit), SSD pricing increasing (SSDs feature memory as a cache). It's likely the next generation of mobile devices (phones, tablets) will also increase and it wouldn't surprise me if the price of games consoles increases (third time in 18 months for Xbox...) It might even cause the next Steam Machine, next Xbox and PS6 to be delayed if the manufacturers can't keep the prices to sensible levels - I suspect the PS6 was already looking at $699/PS5 Pro pricing levels before the RAM crisis hit.

For Apple, I'm expecting that the next time the store goes down to add new products (M5 Pro/Max MBPs, M5 MBA etc) it will come back up with increase RAM upgrade pricing and likely pricing updates even for the regular SKUs. Given the M6 MBPs are adopting a new design and a tandem OLED display, add on a price hike for the price of RAM and I think we're looking at a massive price jump.
 
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leman said:
GDDR is too power-hungry and unreliable for datacenter or workstation use. HMB is the most common GPU RAM for these applications. As @aaronage has pointed out, recent datacenter hardware started to use LPDDR5 as well.

The pricing of all these RAM types are correlated since they are made in the same foundries, and also since product stockpiling and business decisions drive the demand as well.
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Nvidia is starting to use GDDR7 for inference-optimized racks now: https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/...of-gpu-designed-for-massive-context-inference
 
Nate455 said:
This is very good news, I like it when prices come down, and competition works in favour of the consumer.
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Until you realise apple had that price since some 2 months ago or something and Apple RAM upgrade pricing has been widely considered ripoff until maybe recently when RAM price in commodity market goes up substantially, making Apple RAM upgrade pricing ā€œa stealā€, and still expensive regardless.
 
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Who in their right mind would ever need more than 640k of RAM?

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