I was in the market for a 14’’ work laptop and I so DESPERATELY wanted to buy a Framework but I couldn’t thanks to a combination of all the AI bullshit driving up memory prices, Framework still being on the Series 1 Intel Ultra chips, and their global availability not quite being there (this bit is understandable for a relatively new company). I ended up buying a base 14’’ MacBook Pro M5 even though I wanted to stay on Linux simply because it was the only thing with good perf, crazy good battery, and good build quality that was priced semi-reasonably even though it’s on the opposite end of the repairability spectrum.
Even now a comparable Framework (Intel Ultra X7 358H, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) costs ~$150 more than what I paid for my Mac, assuming I can even get it shipped to where I am, and the regional pricing/taxes doesn’t push the price higher. Kinda crazy because it’s on the more reasonable side of things if memory serves. Dell XPS costs even more.
I hope this memory crisis gets sorted because I never thought I’d see the day that Apple became the budget option. Maybe I’ll sell my Mac and get a Framework then because as much as I love using the Mac, I still hate being at Apple’s mercy if anything breaks or if I need an upgrade.
In late December of 2023 when there was a glut of RAM on the market, I purchased 24 64G ECC DDR5 sticks for $188 each. I split them between two production servers I was building for a cluster.
In early 2025 I was setting a third and they had rose to $318 each.
I checked last night and found the price for new was $2,700 a stick.
I don’t know how old “abc” is, but it’s particularly painful for those of us who remember $100 going from getting us a 32Kb RAM pack, to 1Mb, to 64Mb, to 256Mb, to 1Gb, to 16Gb, and then just fucking stop for ten years, and now going back to no longer being able to even get us 16Gb any more. It’s like stuff stopped getting better a decade ago, and everything is being made worse by the greed of rich arseholes
TLDR: Fuck “AI”
I was in the market for a 14’’ work laptop and I so DESPERATELY wanted to buy a Framework but I couldn’t thanks to a combination of all the AI bullshit driving up memory prices, Framework still being on the Series 1 Intel Ultra chips, and their global availability not quite being there (this bit is understandable for a relatively new company). I ended up buying a base 14’’ MacBook Pro M5 even though I wanted to stay on Linux simply because it was the only thing with good perf, crazy good battery, and good build quality that was priced semi-reasonably even though it’s on the opposite end of the repairability spectrum.
Even now a comparable Framework (Intel Ultra X7 358H, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) costs ~$150 more than what I paid for my Mac, assuming I can even get it shipped to where I am, and the regional pricing/taxes doesn’t push the price higher. Kinda crazy because it’s on the more reasonable side of things if memory serves. Dell XPS costs even more.
I hope this memory crisis gets sorted because I never thought I’d see the day that Apple became the budget option. Maybe I’ll sell my Mac and get a Framework then because as much as I love using the Mac, I still hate being at Apple’s mercy if anything breaks or if I need an upgrade.
https://dam.stanford.edu/memory-prices.html
Looks like pretty normal market fluctuation. Not a crisis.
Yeah market fluctuation regularly explains prices more than quintupling while supply vaporizes overnight. The fuck are you smoking?
Logarithmic scales are notorious for hiding spikes.
In late December of 2023 when there was a glut of RAM on the market, I purchased 24 64G ECC DDR5 sticks for $188 each. I split them between two production servers I was building for a cluster. In early 2025 I was setting a third and they had rose to $318 each.
I checked last night and found the price for new was $2,700 a stick.
How is this a fluctuation?
Quite normal, yes. Especially the prices for DDR4 and DDR5, the most commonly used RAM types in consumer laptops/desktops
It’s likely worse than the graph shows because this isn’t average sale price.
I can’t think of a single system I’ve built where I even considered the cheapest RAM options.
I don’t know how old “abc” is, but it’s particularly painful for those of us who remember $100 going from getting us a 32Kb RAM pack, to 1Mb, to 64Mb, to 256Mb, to 1Gb, to 16Gb, and then just fucking stop for ten years, and now going back to no longer being able to even get us 16Gb any more. It’s like stuff stopped getting better a decade ago, and everything is being made worse by the greed of rich arseholes