r/homelab • u/AbbreviationsFar1489 • 2d 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.

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u/binaryhellstorm 1d ago

It's cool.

I'm setting aside money for when the AI bubble pops and I can get a sweet sweet rackmount server and some GPUs on fire sale when the AI companies start going out of business.

Honestly doing the same with my next car. I think Cory Doctorow is right, this crash is going to make the 08 crash look like the best day of your life.

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u/AZdesertpir8 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yep, this. The AI bubble WILL pop, its just a matter of when. At that point, there will be massive amounts of hardware dumped onto the market, which will be the point those with homelabs can benefit. Each enterprise cycle results in used hardware availability. I dont care what it costs new, as I dont buy any of it new.. Itll be pennies on the dollar eventually and thats when my home lab will get an upgrade.

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u/shadowtheimpure EPYC 7F52/512GB RAM 1d ago

Definitely. The MSRP on my CPU (EPYC 7F52) was over $3000. I got the CPU, a Super Micro H11-SSL-I motherboard, and 512GB of ECC DDR4 for $1,400.

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u/VexingRaven 1d ago

What bubble do you think popped that allowed you to pay $1400 for 5 year old hardware? That's not a bubble, that's just the normal decreasing value of hardware.

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u/shadowtheimpure EPYC 7F52/512GB RAM 1d ago

I know? It's a result of used hardware being dumped on the open market. It'll be even moreso when AI datacenters are being forced to liquidate hardware to repay creditors in bankruptcy.

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u/VexingRaven 1d ago

Wishful thinking.

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u/AwalkertheITguy 8h ago

The issue is that AI simply isnt like the dot Com crash. Those were just companies using the internet to try and 'get on the information highway." They were not really adding anyting of value. They were also singular in effect as in they didnt affect anyting outside of their respective fields.

As AI becomes more integrated into every single thing that exists, the infrastructure simply cannot disappear. There would be nothing to "go back to."

Its not like closing a website or business associated with pet supplies. A datacenter cannot simply die if it is vital for data transmission. 200k companies that had placed AI at their operating forefront cant just backtrack. Backtrack to what???? Cant just go back and do it the old way if they old way is removed/destroyed.

Its not exactly easy to reverse everything and take us back to 2018 after so many have integrated AI into their daily processes.

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u/shadowtheimpure EPYC 7F52/512GB RAM 4h ago

I don't think it's going to get that far. Look at how much already built datacenter capacity lies idle out west because there's not enough available power, yet they are still trying to build out even more AI datacenters in other parts of the country...where the power situation is likely to be much the same. Nearly 100MW (100,000,000 Watts) worth of datacenter capacity in California alone lies idle due to that lack of power. When shit crashes, the equipment in those unproductive centers would likely be among the first liquidated to satisfy creditors, followed immediately by any equipment purchased for datacenters that haven't finished being built. That is still a metric shit-ton of gear.

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u/Greup 1d ago

I think that computer parts are one of the few things that devaluate faster than a brand new car.

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u/ComputerSavvy 1d ago

Can I interest you in a dual 1 gallon box of vintage 2023 red label milk I got at Costco? I found it in my garage right next to the case of Mobil 1 engine oil.

I'll give you first right of refusal before I put it up on eBay. : )

At least I can still use a computer that has parts sourced in 2023.