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  • Hacker News
  • Have you checked RAM prices lately ...
    by ReptileMan
  • I bought 32 GB of DDR5 RAM two weeks ago and it is $100 more already.
    by freshpots
  • Looks like I’ll need to put that home server together sooner rather later
    by imbnwa
  • >post decides to use the most crusty GenAI image possible

    Man, what a cancer. Straight up using the bare TSMC logo here would work just fine.

    by joaohaas
  • The Nvidia 3000 series were on Samsung's process since it was quite a bit cheaper than the TSMC process at the time. Samsung has already said it intends to undercut TSMC so assuming they are fairly equivalent it doesn't seem unreasonable for consumer CPUs and GPUs to be made on their process, it gives a price advantage to anyone that makes the move.
    by PaulKeeble
  • Most consumers would do fine with like .25 Apple M1's worth of compute.
    by mouse_
  • Most use phones.
    by tempest_
  • Alongside presumably more RAM that came on a laptop with an M1. Certainly more GPU than came on a laptop with an M1.
    by KPGv2
  • Even the mythical "average user" uses tons of processing. Just "a few tabs" is like having several large applications open.
    by zoeysmithe
  • This is what I don't get about laptop power consumption.

    I would love an x86 laptop that can operate at 5W or less, even if it isn't blazing fast. If they can squeeze more performance out of a CPU for the same power budget, why can't they make a CPU with the same capability with less power use?

    by unethical_ban
  • I agree. Even my quad core i7 from 2011 is still fast enough for everything average consumer does. Heck, even average i5 laptop from 2015 or so is more than sufficient.
    by jjgghhggc
  • Price of new hardware increasing will stop old hardware from deprecating as much, meaning higher prices across the board.
    by makeitdouble
  • 3% to 5% more expensive every year - that is similar to or less than inflation. Given their dominance, i'm genuinely curious why they don't raise it by 20% a year. Or 50%?
    by spacejogger
  • That's a nice little island you have there; it would be a shame if we let the gang next door have their way with it. Now why don't you make nice with our close business associates and give them a good deal, eh?

    Mama mia, cabrone.

    by ikidd
  • Yes. They should open a FabStore and make Apple pay 30% of their revenue.
    by amelius
  • This would make sense if Apple sells the chips
    by omikun
  • I have been interested in city planning for a while and the idea of an 'urban growth barrier' is a key concept with massive benefits. Basically, when you limit a resource, like available land, it simplifies thinking, forces inward development and and very often the 'impossible' problems go away because creative solutions come out. Maybe the chip industry will see something similar if a barrier of 'just wait till the new smaller process hits' gets put in place.
    by jmward01
  • That's just delaying progress for everyone as TSMC basically doesn't have alternatives for the processes that are actually good. Definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
    by TylerE
  • So I remember urban growth barriers being all the rage in the late 00s, and Portland specifically was held up as a shining example. Many Western cities (eg. Portland, Seattle, SF & the Peninsula, Salt Lake City) followed this general pattern though.

    What I actually see, living in one of those metro regions that is land-constrained, is very little infill development and actually implemented creative thinking, and lots of homelessness and unaffordable homes. Sure, being supply-constrained gets people thinking about infill development and mass transit and densification and walkable neighbors. But there's always a barrier, usually multiple ones, to actually putting that into practice. Instead, you get the obvious effects: the supply of homes is constrained, their price rises to the point where only rich people can afford them, everyone else either goes homeless or moves out of the area. Sometimes, very often, a supply constraint simply means that people do without. Even when there is multi-family infill development, people don't want to live there. Everybody wants their SFH, even though intellectually they know it's unsustainable.

    I suspect it's going to be the same here. More expensive CPUs and GPUs are just going to mean more expensive CPUs and GPUs with no real silver lining.

    by nostrademons
  • A bit OT but I live on a very land constrained island with the highest population density in Europe (see Malta).

    There has been major increase in demand for housing and supply cannot be built fast enough to match. Its turned most of the island into a construction site so rampant that I made an online tracker for urban planning permits so folks can get ahead on knowing whats going on around them.

    Idk if you have any wisdom but there's no creative solutionising happening, just the rich able to buy whatever property they want causing prices to rise which is pricing out the middle class, causing a whole lot of grief and downstream issues (such as plummeting fertility rate because homes are too expensive).

    Is there a magic toggle we missed to unlock this creativity or am I being realistic by being skeptical that limiting important resources just leads to harsher inequality?

    by purrcat259
  • The world is probably going to be split between EUV and non-EUV lithography for a long time. I'd like to see things like the Raspberry Pi stay on the older nodes and just wring out the performance. For reference the Zen1 CPUs were on 14/12nm from GF and I believe they are still faster than the pi, so there is room for improvement from them on old nodes.
    by phkahler
  • > The world is probably going to be split between EUV and non-EUV lithography for a long time.

    How long before China develops indigenous EUV capability?

    by Qem
  • Fun fact: only five high-NA EUV Machines have ever been delivered.
    by on_the_train
  • I think it will split between TSMC (sold out forever) and Samsung/Intel (please please be our customer).
    by wmf
  • That’s true, but Zen1 TDP is a lot higher than an RPi. Hitting that level of performance in a power and heat envelope that works for a Pi probably demands a smaller process node, unfortunately.
    by wrigby