Birbla

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Hacker News

Some personal thoughts on the current ram/GPU shortage -price hikes.

by theoneone

You are aware that a 1 trillion parameter model won’t run on any quantity of consumer hardware, even heavily quantized… you need a data center for that. And that is not even to talk of the Kimi K3 model which is in the ballpark of 3 trillion

by ukblewis

Its certainly plausible but what % of consumers would actually buy RAM and do it themselves? The most profitable regular mainstream user would gladly pay $20 and use a simple web interface and not worry about anything else.

by 0n0n0m0uz

So you're arguing that ai companies overbought memory to increase scarcity? Possibly even buying e.g. consumer ddr?

by xyzsparetimexyz

A single bit of HBM consumes 2-3x the manufacturing capacity that a single bit of conventional DRAM does.

by bob1029

I think this misunderstands basic supply and demand.

If there's this much global demand for RAM, there is simply no need to speculate further about intent; all else being equal, prices would have risen naturally anyways.

Of course, the rise in prices is also incidentally convenient for those that have RAM, and would make it harder for others to compete, but whether this was intentional is beside the point.

by stevenhuang

The memory manufacturers don't believe the rate is sustainable, so are hesitant to start up new production to meet demand when it will inevitably crash. They have to operate on longer timescales than software companies.

by tencentshill

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  • Hacker News
  • Some personal thoughts on the current ram/GPU shortage -price hikes.
    by theoneone
  • You are aware that a 1 trillion parameter model won’t run on any quantity of consumer hardware, even heavily quantized… you need a data center for that. And that is not even to talk of the Kimi K3 model which is in the ballpark of 3 trillion
    by ukblewis
  • Its certainly plausible but what % of consumers would actually buy RAM and do it themselves? The most profitable regular mainstream user would gladly pay $20 and use a simple web interface and not worry about anything else.
    by 0n0n0m0uz
  • So you're arguing that ai companies overbought memory to increase scarcity? Possibly even buying e.g. consumer ddr?
    by xyzsparetimexyz
  • A single bit of HBM consumes 2-3x the manufacturing capacity that a single bit of conventional DRAM does.
    by bob1029
  • I think this misunderstands basic supply and demand.

    If there's this much global demand for RAM, there is simply no need to speculate further about intent; all else being equal, prices would have risen naturally anyways.

    Of course, the rise in prices is also incidentally convenient for those that have RAM, and would make it harder for others to compete, but whether this was intentional is beside the point.

    by stevenhuang
  • The memory manufacturers don't believe the rate is sustainable, so are hesitant to start up new production to meet demand when it will inevitably crash. They have to operate on longer timescales than software companies.
    by tencentshill
  • From the opposite angle, there's apparently evidence that the RAM companies themselves are price fixing: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/samsung-sk-hynix-...
    by jmholla