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The coming “dark age for gaming hardware” - two 16GB DDR5 modules for 32GB total start at $330

When the dust settles, I believe that AI of the future will be open source models run locally - not models moderated/censored to the whims of large corporations and governments as they are now.

These AIs will be run only when the user needs them - not constantly running away at large server farms / data centres.

RAM companies will eventually realise they’ve backed the wrong horse and sustainability in the future will come from convincing consumers that they need 128GB - 1TB RAM. By then it’ll be too late because there will be perfectly usable AI for the vast majority who want them, running 16GB or less.

The problem now is of big corporations competing with each other. They’re banking on AI making them a lot of money in the long term, but I don’t see that happening. They can’t convince most people of the benefits of AI now, and they’re effectively forcing it on the end user in order to justify their existence.
 
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JSRinUK said:
When the dust settles, I believe that AI of the future will be open source models run locally - not models moderated/censored to the whims of large corporations and governments as they are now.

These AIs will be run only when the user needs them - not constantly running away at large server farms / data centres.

RAM companies will eventually realise they’ve backed the wrong horse and sustainability in the future will come from convincing consumers that they need 128GB - 1TB RAM. By then it’ll be too late because there will be perfectly usable AI for the vast majority who want them, running 16GB or less.

The problem now is of big corporations competing with each other. They’re banking on AI making them a lot of money in the long term, but I don’t see that happening. They can’t convince most people of the benefits of AI now, and they’re effectively forcing it on the end user in order to justify their existence.
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Is going to pop and will be interesting to see. Sadly, the average person in the west will be punished for the greed of these corporations & corrupt politicians. Me I'm isolated by deliberate intention as saw this coming a long time back...

Q-6
 
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i priced out a mid-tier gaming build on Microcenter this morning and it came in under 1800 dollars - the talk of gaming is doomed seems a bit over stated.
 
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If you are buying a Windows computer now, I see that many pre-built cost less now than self builds (similar specs although the top builds are usually only self builds).

I tried to explain to a Windows computer user that Apple's memory is fabricated into the processor chip and that Apple doesn't use the RAM modules that the Windows computer uses. As such Apple is not affected by the windows computer RAM price increases although Apple has always charged a premium for their memory :(.
 
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Plutonius said:
If you are buying a Windows computer now, I see that many pre-built cost less now than self builds (similar specs although the top builds are usually only self builds).
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Yeah, I priced out a build for 1800 and nearly the same exact build was for 1,300 at bestbuy

Acer Nitro 60 Gaming Desktop AMD Ryzen 9 7900 32GB DDR5 Memory NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 1 TB SSD Black N60-180-UB33 - Best Buy

Shop Acer Nitro 60 Gaming Desktop AMD Ryzen 9 7900 32GB DDR5 Memory NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 1 TB SSD Black products at Best Buy. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or in-store pick-up. Price Match Guarantee.
www.bestbuy.com

credit to @eltoslightfoot sharing that in another thread.
 
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The thing about the crash coming soon is that Micron serves the AI sector and probably has better info about how that is doing now and for the foreseeable future than anyone here. It still decided to exit the consumer sector, not mothball or reduce but fully nix it. If the crash is supposedly coming soon, I can't think the board at Micron would have put all of its eggs in such a short term basket.
 
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Just the other day a friend told me he had a "stack of 64gb 2018 i3 Mini's" that he no longer uses for proxmox. I guess that's DDR4, but he's thinking about pulling the RAM from them and selling it separately as he feels that will be more profitable than selling old Mini's.
 
throAU said:
You realise that the masses are happy with the gaming performance of the nintendo switch, yes?
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Do you know why people are happy with the switch? The switch has games.

Do you know why people don't consider the Mini a gaming machine? Lack of games.

Here's a steam hardware survery from November and the Mac has only 2% It doesn't matter about the hardware capabilities of the Mac, when publishers are not producing games for the Mac.

I also found that M4 Pro Mini struggled at playing some AAA games (natively and via Crossover), so much so that I returned it for a M4 MAx studio. So a M4 Mac mini isn't all that idea as a gaming system, with the M5, that may change but I can only say what I've personally experienced.
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throAU said:
Sure, but people will be able to buy ipads and mac minis as apple has a heap of leverage for DRAM supply
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Apple hasn't increased pricing because they have contracts. Those contracts may not be in place for 2026, so we may see price increases with the M5 products in 2026.
 
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JSRinUK said:
The problem now is of big corporations competing with each other. They’re banking on AI making them a lot of money in the long term, but I don’t see that happening. They can’t convince most people of the benefits of AI now, and they’re effectively forcing it on the end user in order to justify their existence.
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and people are hating it!
 
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maflynn said:
Apple hasn't increased pricing because they have contracts. Those contracts may not be in place for 2026, so we may see price increases with the M5 products in 2026.
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Even if they don't see a price increase in 2026 I could still see them raising upgrade prices when the new products launch.

Everything that uses some form of memory will be impacted too, not just RAM sticks. OpenAI reportedly bought 40% of the world's memory wafer production supply til 2029. Unless they go bust or something changes this isn't just going to be resolved in a few months unfortunately.
 
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I was thinking about upgrading my PC (Mobo, Ram, CPU) to match a little better with the new GPU, 9060XT 16Gb but sadly, that won't going to happen.

My 5700G with the actual 16GB DDR4 Ram will stay intact for a long time
 
maflynn said:
Apple hasn't increased pricing because they have contracts. Those contracts may not be in place for 2026, so we may see price increases with the M5 products in 2026.
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Majority of the public facing companies are planning to absorb rises in cost as much as possible. The price hike in silicon serves them no purpose, they are more concerned with customer loyalty as once broken is very hard to rebuild.

Gaming on a Mac 🤔 been doing that for decades, equally is akin to pissing in the wind. I don't personally care for Windows and there are plenty of tools to shutdown Microsoft's BS. My HW their OS, their license, not real interested in that. I use my systems as I see fit, they work for me not Apple, Microsoft or any other...

Q-6
 
My concern is Apple is missing a trick by keeping RAM and SSD prices artificially low. They should move prices up with the market and profit from whatever prices they've locked in with suppliers for however long. This will also help customers adjust to the new normal in RAM and SSD prices.

I know this was raised during the last earnings call, but the answer was very vague.
 
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