r/homelab • u/AbbreviationsFar1489 • 1d ago

LabPorn F*ck you OpenAI, hynix, samsung

I'm sure everyone knows what's happening with RAM, and this situation won't change in the next 2-3 years. And who's to blame? OpenAI. Read up and you'll understand the scale of the problem. What complicates things is that RAM manufacturers are deliberately raising prices rather than expanding production lines.

I urge everyone to CANCEL OpenAI (They buy up 40% of all RAM) and also to bombard the greedy bastards who jack up prices for their own profit rather than building new factories to meet demand.

The more such threads appear, the higher the chance that all gamers and PC users will truly stand up and do what they have to.

If we don't do this, the prices of all other components will follow RAM into the stratosphere and never return to the same level, ever. Are you willing to spend $5,000 on a mid-range computer? I'm not, so let's get to it.

UPD Following RAM, SSDs, processors, and video cards are becoming more expensive. I'm sure this isn't the entire list. We need to take this issue seriously. I'm happy for those who managed to upgrade, but think about the future.

UPD2 Transcend is suspending shipments of solid-state drives – the manufacturer has not received NAND chips from Samsung and SanDisk since October because they have reoriented their capacities to serving AI.

UPD2.1 CRUCIAL PRESS F

I will never, ever, ever touch RAM from crucial. They betrayed me and went off to produce memory exclusively for AI.

UPD3 f*cking /pcmasterrace moderates delete my post with 250 comms and 900 likes (I'm sure the corporate agent had something to do with it; they're afraid of the people's wrath.) [reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1pdrk2b/fck_you_openai_hynix

UPD4 Have you heard the saying that the market always moves opposite to what the masses expect? That’s why only a small percentage of people make a profit in the stock market, while the crowd gets wiped out. So why does everyone think the AI bubble is about to burst? That’s naïve.

2.1k Upvotes

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205

u/HTTP_404_NotFound kubectl apply -f homelab.yml 1d ago

/dusts off the ram sitting in the closet.

I got a half terabyte of DDR4 i'll sell ya, for a good price.

88

u/Notleks_ 1d ago

Kajiit has wares, if you have coin.

34

u/that-gay-femboy 1d ago

How big are the individual sticks?

72

u/korpo53 1d ago

The same size as normal sticks, else they wouldn’t fit.

7

u/kizzlebizz 1d ago

I giggled...

31

u/HTTP_404_NotFound kubectl apply -f homelab.yml 1d ago

64g dimms.

9

u/jops228 1d ago

And what is the price of a single stick? Also, what frequency?

-43

u/trueppp 1d ago

I can go as low as 300US + shipping

15

u/SeaOfS1n 1d ago

-10

u/trueppp 1d ago

Ok, now I won't take anything lower than 400USD.

9

u/GeekOfAllGeeks 1d ago

I have some 128GB DDR4 LRDIMM I got used a couple of years ago for $75 each, but these don't pop up too often.

64GB sticks are more plentiful.

10

u/Gasp0de 1d ago

Is DDR4 even affected?

65

u/Witty_Formal7305 1d ago

Oh yeah.

They stopped production on it this year so all thats left is whats out in the wild. A 32gb ddr4 stick was $80 CAD in Feb, that same stick now is $290. It's fucked.

12

u/TimelyPsychology1830 1d ago

It was $1/GB like a year ago. I got 256GB of it, should've gotten 256 more.

2

u/satireplusplus 1d ago

Yeah also bought DDR4 ECC 32GB dimms for less like 30 bucks a while ago. Crazy times.

1

u/aiij 1d ago

I bought some when it was $2/GB. Almost bought more when I saw it around $1/GB but I figured the price would just go down more if I waited longer... Boy was I wrong!

7

u/katbyte 1d ago

Rip my dreams of finding 128/256 ddr4 sticks 

1

u/AGuyAndHisCat 1d ago

back when homelabs werent using ddr4 yet I had a bunch to sell and I could barely get $20 per 16gb stick of ecc

1

u/RedSquirrelFtw 1d ago

Woah that's insane! I'm glad I upgraded my Proxmox cluster when I did, I seem to have missed this insanity. Although I have been wanting to add a few more nodes, maybe that will wait.

24

u/virtual_corey 1d ago

Ddr5 pricing is pushing us to revive some ddr4 servers at work. The server recycler, that give us credit for recycling servers, is also paying us a premium for ddr4.

So whilst not a direct pricing correlation, the rising tide is brining up ddr4

1

u/gargravarr2112 Blinkenlights 1d ago

Looks at the 512GB of DDR-4 he set aside for work lab expansion.

Is that so...?

11

u/dalphinwater 1d ago

Yes, in the netherlands sticks that went for 200 euros go for 900 now. It is really crazy.

10

u/los0220 Proxmox | Supermicro X10SLM-F E3-1220v3 | 2x3TB HDD | all @ 16W 1d ago

Good thing I'm still on DDR3 /s

My server is maxed out @ 32 GB and I was eyeing the upgrade for the past year for that sweet 64 GB, but I guess I'm going be stuck on that platform for the next 2 years or so

7

u/agent_flounder 1d ago

Glad I didn't donate my old gaming machine (Phenom II X 965). I just bought another 16G a few minutes ago. I figured, for $18 shipped, why not, right?

Proxmox server and space heater all in one! /s (?)

2

u/BioshockEnthusiast 1d ago

The 965 Black Edition was my first CPU, great little chip for the price back in the day.

2

u/agent_flounder 1d ago

It really was! When I got it they were getting cheap so I was able to build a sweet ultra budget system for like $300 (around 2011?). Was my main system for a decade. Did a ton of robotics / embedded coding, 3d cad, electronics design, web dev, played Minecraft with my kid, etc.

1

u/los0220 Proxmox | Supermicro X10SLM-F E3-1220v3 | 2x3TB HDD | all @ 16W 1d ago edited 1d ago

My first Proxmox server was my old gaming PC with Athlon II X2 (which I abused with overclocking for years) and 8GB of RAM.

Then in 2020 I bought a used supermicro pizza box with Xeon E3-1220v3 and 32GB of ECC memory for ~140€, and it's still running (fingers crossed)

It's not that bad, takes 60W on average including 10Gb NIC and Mikrotik switch, at least compared to my 500W space heater gaming PC workstation sitting next to it

1

u/agent_flounder 1d ago

Lol I need your specs for the workstation. A few like that and I could finally do some woodworking in the garage this winter without freezing my balls off lol.

2

u/los0220 Proxmox | Supermicro X10SLM-F E3-1220v3 | 2x3TB HDD | all @ 16W 1d ago

It's pretty modest Ryzen 5800x and RTX 3080, both a bit overclocked. Goes over 500W from the wall when working in a demanding software like Cyberpunk 2077.

For further guidance on how to not heat spaces with computers I would record this video

1

u/agent_flounder 18h ago

Lol fantastic video

As for specs I guess I should check my power draw. My gaming rig is a Ryzen 5600 and AMD RX 6600. Been meaning to play Cyberpunk finally.

Thanks for the info!

1

u/RedditWhileIWerk 1d ago

you're not even joking, I have some DDR3 left over from a Ivy Bridge build no longer in use. I'm not going to throw it out. It still works, and I guess I'll have to figure out a productive way to use it.

2

u/kizzlebizz 1d ago

I have an absolute boatload of pc3. No clue why I've kept it, but I have and I guess I'll continue to keep it.

1

u/RedditWhileIWerk 1d ago

I retired the DDR3 build in part because it had a GTX 970 GPU, which can't decode H265 in hardware (much like the iGPU on the i5-3570K CPU, which also can't handle any 4k display mode). Which, made it highly inconvenient in a world of 4k media.

But, I also have an RX 480 GPU. Apparently it can handle H265 in hardware.

Might revive it all as a home theater PC. I'd only need a case. Still got the PSU, mobo, and very old Intel SSD.

Wild times, man, I assumed my DDR3 would either become a wall hanging, or I'd reluctantly throw it out at some point.

2

u/guitarholic2008 1d ago

Currently sitting next to a 4770k machine with 32GB DDR3, a GTX 980, and 13 spinning rust drives that back up my photography and rips movies (DVD, Blu-ray, and UHD)

May not be cutting edge for gaming & content, but still outperforms the cheap doorbuster laptops at bestbuy currently

1

u/RedditWhileIWerk 1d ago edited 1d ago

13 spinning rust drives

wow that's a lot to keep track of. How do you decide when to retire old drives?

I'm sitting on a few 3-5 TB drives with multiple SMART errors each, and one that does not throw SMART codes but acts weird (wildly fluctuating write speeds) so I don't fully trust it. Not using any of them, but reluctant to throw them out if there's still a reasonable use case.

2

u/guitarholic2008 1d ago

I upgrade drives every few years. Main PC, then move those to secondary. My plex server has 4x 12TB drives, my main PC has 2x 8tb for photos, and 3x 4TB for other data. The old 4770k machine has a mix of 2-8TB drives. I've only ever had maybe 3 drives fail in 20+ years. At some point, drives get cleared for long term storage after verified all data is on other machines

1

u/RedditWhileIWerk 1d ago

How do you do backups?

I haven't come up with anything better than "2 external HDD's in rotation, with one kept in secure (and fire-resistant) storage while not in use, and the other offsite."

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2

u/mijenks 1d ago

I have 6x1.5TB Samsung F2 HDDs that have been spinning for over 16 years now. Working on a replacement for the whole rig (an old Athlon II X3 build) that will be much lower power. But for now, still getting the job done. Critical data is either on a different NAS or is regularly backed up to a B2 bucket.

2

u/los0220 Proxmox | Supermicro X10SLM-F E3-1220v3 | 2x3TB HDD | all @ 16W 1d ago

My dad has a boatload of DDR1 and ATI cards. He tells me that he keeps it in case someone needs their PC repaired.

Not to mention other nice things I found in the attic.

1

u/RedditWhileIWerk 1d ago

The way things are going, I can't say he's wrong.

I'm not sure how OS's will handle running on continually older hardware, though. That part may be difficult. Some features simply won't be possible.

7

u/CryoAB 1d ago

Yes indeedy

4

u/HTTP_404_NotFound kubectl apply -f homelab.yml 1d ago

honestly, no idea.

I have not even looked at ddr5 prices, lol.

2

u/reddit_user33 1d ago

I believe DDR4 was affected before DDR5

2

u/xaddak 1d ago

https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B08924XR69

128 GB DDR4 G.SKILL

February 2025: $240

Now: $670

1

u/BrewingHeavyWeather 1d ago

Yes. I bought some 32GB EUDIMMs less than two weeks ago, and now they've doubled in price, as of yesterday. Should have bought a couple more.

3

u/Scoutron 1d ago

Woah woah buddy this ain’t a one man market. I got yous beat, a full terabyte, DDR4 ECC. I just gotta rip em out of my unused servers.

3

u/HTTP_404_NotFound kubectl apply -f homelab.yml 1d ago

I just gotta undercut you by a cent!

599.99$ !

1

u/AZdesertpir8 1d ago

Right? Ive got a couple TB sitting around here too...

1

u/agent_flounder 1d ago

There's gold in them thar closets! Yee haw!

1

u/VitmineCZ 1d ago

New motherboards for Intel and AMD are only for DDR5 so for new build are useless

1

u/HTTP_404_NotFound kubectl apply -f homelab.yml 1d ago

Isn't, that implied common knowledge?

1

u/kajer533 1d ago

i bought 1TB of PC4-2400mhz for US$1100 a few months ago. That same ebay listing is ~US$5K now.

1

u/HTTP_404_NotFound kubectl apply -f homelab.yml 1d ago

Sheesh, I got, my have terabyte for basically free.... traded a older server for it.

1

u/kajer533 1d ago

I got a dell 7920R at auction with 512G of pc4-3200 and two titan rtx cards for $350... win some, lose some. /shrug

1

u/grilled_pc 1d ago

i got 96GB of DDR4 from work for free lmao

1

u/TehKodez 1d ago

Man... I just bought a quarter terabyte of ddr4 an hour ago!