Crucial exiting the consumer memory market

[maflynn]

After nearly 30 years, Crucial will stop selling RAM to consumers

The company cited heavy demand from AI data centers as the reason for abandoning its consumer brand, a move that will remove one of the most recognizable names in the do-it-yourself PC upgrade market.

Sad, I wonder if the AI is a bubble that bursts, they'll see the error of their ways.

 

[chabig]

If that happens, I see no reason why they can't reenter the consumer market.

 

[Queen6]

Of course they will as there will be a vacuum and a hungry audience. This is just the start; RAM prices are going to double again if not more, Nvidia & AMD are talking about only producing high end GPU's (5090 etc.), and stopping providing memory for their partners.

Once current contracts/cycle finish up anything using silicon prices will soar for the next 3 years or so... This the primary reason why I bought a new gaming PC recently. If the AI bubble bursts prices will normalise, if it doesn't will get a lot worse. I'm based in Asia and starting to see the price creep, will be much worse in the West can guarantee that much. Daughter needs a new notebook for uini next year. Am shopping now as after January could be a very different landscape...

Q-6

 

[mentaluproar]

I just built a DDR4 based home server with an intel GPU to stream the few games I care about. Used older gen parts as the current stuff is too expensive aside from that intel GPU. I'm just going to have to wait this out and hope for the best, but its looking more like this market will blow up after th AI bubble pops and will be going back to paper for everything.

 

[Queen6]

Speaks volumes... Think Steve is right, if you cant buy the HW you will be compelled to rent computing time.

Q-6

 

[pshufd]

We've used them since around 2000. Quite a shame but the impact on consumers will be worse.

 

[Arran]

Someone will make bank from this today, but it's a short-sighted move. From the article:

For Micron, the calculus is clear: Enterprise customers pay more and buy in bulk.

Huge enterprise customers only pay more now because all us little guys (consumers) are competing to buy the same RAM. Once Micron quits us, the big guys will have Micron right where they want them. And those big guys negotiate to win. Us little guys just pay sticker price.

 

[maflynn]

Huge enterprise customers only pay more now because all us little guys (consumers) are competing to buy the same RAM

The problem is that consumers were not the only competition, other businesses, and even governments. If everyone and their brother is building out new data centers, its clear that demand is not going to decrease any time soon.

I wouldn't be surprised to see other manufacturers do the same thing

 

[Queen6]

The problem is that consumers were not the only competition, other businesses, and even governments. If everyone and their brother is building out new data centers, its clear that demand is not going to decrease any time soon.

I wouldn't be surprised to see other manufacturers do the same thing

Soon enough...

Q-6

 

[weckart]

Huge enterprise customers only pay more now because all us little guys (consumers) are competing to buy the same RAM. Once Micron quits us, the big guys will have Micron right where they want them. And those big guys negotiate to win. Us little guys just pay sticker price.

There aren't many other primary manufacturers of RAM chips. With the rising demand of the AI bubble, I would suppose that Micron isn't having to offer much in the way of bulk discounts to the big boys either.

 

[Queen6]

Safe to say should the AI bubble pop, Micron or any of it's subsidiaries will not be a brand I'll be considering regardless of price. They walked away from us, is a two-way street...

Q-6

 

[Biro]

I’ve been mostly using OWC memory for my Apple computers over the past few years. I may now have to resort to them for the occasional Windows machine I build or update. But the truth is, unless one is building from scratch, there are fewer and fewer machines that permit any upgrades. And I’ve noticed that both Crucial and OWC don’t seem to be offering consumers truly fast RAM these days. Sure, you can get DDR5 memory. But usually not faster than about 4800 Mhz.

 

[pshufd]

I’ve been mostly using OWC memory for my Apple computers over the past few years. I may now have to resort to them for the occasional Windows machine I build or update. But the truth is, unless one is building from scratch, there are fewer and fewer machines that permit any upgrades. And I’ve noticed that both Crucial and OWC don’t seem to be offering consumers truly fast RAM these days. Sure, you can get DDR5 memory. But usually not faster than about 4800 Mhz.

We used G-Skills for our last build and it works fine. We've also used Corsair Vengeance which is nice for the heat spreaders and color package.

Samsung is currently an option too.

I have 128 GB on a 2020 build and I use that system when I need a lot of RAM. It's not fast by any means but it can handle large workloads.