It happens every time different types of ram are phased out. The price drops for a while until excess inventory is sold off and then prices increase due to scarcity. You wouldn’t see it with SSDs because new models tend to be backward compatible.
AI is the culprit. Memory manufacturers prefer to use their available production capacity to make DDR5 and HBM memory. Both forms of faster memory play a role in modern (AI) systems. DDR5 is also the standard for modern computers, but HBM memory is particularly popular for AI accelerators.
Manufacturers have no motivation to increase DDR4 capacity. DDR5 and HBM5 have more customers, and manufacturers who want the legacy memory have no choice but to pay a premium.
I’ve seen the claim around but I’m highly skeptical of it. DDR5 is far too slow for anything where memory bandwidth really matters, any newly produced chip that’s gonna be used for AI is on HBM3 or HBM3e, or possibly GDDR6/GDDR7 if it’s a GPU pulled from the consumer segment. HBM5 is still a very, very early research project and is certainly not being produced yet.
Did this also happen when DDR3 was phased out?
It happens every time different types of ram are phased out. The price drops for a while until excess inventory is sold off and then prices increase due to scarcity. You wouldn’t see it with SSDs because new models tend to be backward compatible.
I think DDR3 only became more expensive than DDR4 when there were no new motherboards to support them.
AI is speeding up the process of retiring DDR4 if I am not wrong.
care to explain a bit more?
AI is the culprit. Memory manufacturers prefer to use their available production capacity to make DDR5 and HBM memory. Both forms of faster memory play a role in modern (AI) systems. DDR5 is also the standard for modern computers, but HBM memory is particularly popular for AI accelerators.
Manufacturers have no motivation to increase DDR4 capacity. DDR5 and HBM5 have more customers, and manufacturers who want the legacy memory have no choice but to pay a premium.
Source: https://itdaily.com/news/business/ai-maakt-ddr4-duurder-dan-ddr5/
I’ve seen the claim around but I’m highly skeptical of it. DDR5 is far too slow for anything where memory bandwidth really matters, any newly produced chip that’s gonna be used for AI is on HBM3 or HBM3e, or possibly GDDR6/GDDR7 if it’s a GPU pulled from the consumer segment. HBM5 is still a very, very early research project and is certainly not being produced yet.