HA HA RAM

[chazzy2501]

Some of my older laptops (2021 - 2024) were kitted out with just 8GB of RAM. (as HP would charge £100 more for the 16GB model) as the laptops work well with 8GB at the time we didn't see the need to upgrade them... Well now is the time as some are starting to chug and OMFG.. 

 

£45 -50 for 8GB stick of DDR4....  EIGHT GIG STICK... FIFTY QUID... These were £15 last time I looked.  I'm now going through my recycling looking for 50 pound notes in my old devices. 

 

if I can't harvest enough, they go without... (or I'll put slower 4gb modules in... so 8gb fast vs 12gb slow)

 

 

[Steve101]

I'm looking at £400 for 32GB DDR5

[3s-gtech]

Our 8GB equipped staff laptops have a single slot, so 16GB+ sticks only...

 

I think I'll do without and they'll have to manage!

[6Foot3]

The worst part is that the manufacturers are taking advantage and slowing down production to push the price up.

[Sylv3r]

One of our account managers at one of suppliers mentioned an increase across the board for RAM - he warned us about 3 - 4 weeks ago and now it's appearing to become a reality if those are the prices you are now being quoted.

[chazzy2501]

just saved £120 from recycling... 

 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2025 by chazzy2501

[6Foot3]

14 minutes ago, chazzy2501 said:

just saved £120 from recycling... 

 

 

 

Going to have to start putting RAM in my wallet.

[3s-gtech]

Yeah my RAM hoarding tendencies don't look quite so much like a mental illness now!

 

Perhaps I should have saved the hundreds of 4GB sticks of DDR3 that we chucked out in summer, but meh.

[machy]

We brought about 120 Sticks of ram 5 weeks ago for upgrades, they have gone up 3-4x in the last couple of weeks.

 

Will be digging stuff out of recycling 

[Dos_Box]

I'm so glad I got a new SSD and GPU during the summer. I'd hate to think how much they would have gone up to should I be looking now.
Now that schools are (mostly) out of the Windows 11 upgrade saga, this will hold many back from keeping their systems running as intended should all they need is a storage or RAM upgrade.
 

[36Degrees]

1 hour ago, alordcharlie said:

The worst part is that the manufacturers are taking advantage and slowing down production to push the price up.

And some apps (I'm looking at you MS Teams!) are using 1GB whilst sat idle RAM hungry W11 apps

 

Out of curiosity I checked how much the RAM I bought for my home PC in January for £145 would be now - £443!!

[Cat_Jam148]

It's gone absolutely mental, and we'll be feeling the affects of this for a good while I bet. Anything that uses RAM will likely be seeing a price increase.

 

I've taken a look at the RAM kit I put in my PC over the holidays, and it's gone from £250 to £700 🤯

[Olliedawg]

I'm glad we have a little stockpile of DDR4..

[Dos_Box]

25 minutes ago, Olliedawg said:

I'm glad we have a little stockpile of DDR4..

That holiday won't pay for itself  

[southhamster]

Well. What goes around comes around. Back in the day, in the time of dinosaurs aka the 1990's,  RAM was so expensive that we had thieves breaking in and wrecking PC's just to get at the Ram and steal it! Our Putney head office had loads of RAM stolen one weekend and we had to rush new kit down to get them up and running.  

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ram-raiding-is-the-crime-of-the-nineties-1598147.html

 

"Modern PCs require at least 4 megabytes of RAM to function, but Microsoft's new Windows 95 operating system requires at least 8Mb, and some users have installed 16Mb or more, worth hundreds of pounds"

 

And this was for 8MB modules, not GB! 

[MatthewL]

I got 8 sticks of 8GB for some 3 or 4 year old PC's for less than £30 each online a few weeks back to double up an office of PC's.

[robintech]

10 hours ago, southhamster said:

Well. What goes around comes around.

 

There was that Airport heist as well, can imagine another one happening soon

"More than £2.8m of computer chips {RAM} have been stolen from a cargo centre near Heathrow Airport.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2313801.stm

[ICTDirect_Dave]

22 hours ago, chazzy2501 said:

 

 

£45 -50 for 8GB stick of DDR4....  EIGHT GIG STICK... FIFTY QUID... These were £15 last time I looked.  I'm now going through my recycling looking for 50 pound notes in my old devices. 

Drop me a message, I'm sure i can be significantly cheaper than that

[Koldov]

 

21 hours ago, 3s-gtech said:

Yeah my RAM hoarding tendencies don't look quite so much like a mental illness now!

 

Perhaps I should have saved the hundreds of 4GB sticks of DDR3 that we chucked out in summer, but meh.

 

I've never sent anything to recycling without pulling the RAM and SSD first.

 

Yes I have a drawer full.... but you never know, *I might need it one day!

 

*The hoarder's mantra

[Rob_D]

https://youtu.be/44KP0vp2Wvg?si=oyrc5cYLcBTrQYZf&t=515

 Over $10k for a ram stick. Oaky, it's super shiny and high capacity, but still.... 😓

[Bumhug360]

23 hours ago, alordcharlie said:

The worst part is that the manufacturers are taking advantage and slowing down production to push the price up.

They aren't slowing down production, they are shifting production. Micron for example have killed the Crucial brand in order to shift production for enterprise components used in data centres. Ram production is set to increase over the next couple of years but the stargate project by OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank is expected to use 40% of all production, and thats just one AI project!

[aydee]

14 minutes ago, Bumhug360 said:

They aren't slowing down production, they are shifting production. Micron for example have killed the Crucial brand in order to shift production for enterprise components used in data centres. Ram production is set to increase over the next couple of years but the stargate project by OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank is expected to use 40% of all production, and thats just one AI project!

surely this isnt sustainable?? like just how much can these compaines pump into buidling new Datacentres and expanding. i'm not sure AI will be this big for so long, i personally expect it to shift to way smaller levels of use in induvidual softwares over time.
maybe im not in the know but what are they possibly using all that processing power for?

[Dos_Box]

I do follow a lot of economists over various platforms, and they do seem to be saying there is very likely to be an AI crash, similar to the dotcom bust.
One problem they have is that a lot of money has been pumped into the platform (various) development and building of these data centres. It is a LOT of money.
Should the AI bubble burst, then it will most likely there will be a big hit on the stock market.
Similar to the dotcom boom though, I think that many of the technologies will be scraped by by the survivors and the 'good' ideas integrated into their AI products.
 

Years ago I read a book called DotCon (IIRC) which covered the boom and bust cycle of it. What does come to light is that many of the companies that took a great deal of investor money but failed were working on things that we take for granted today such as same\next day delivery, the ability to request specialist services the same day (dog walking for example), but back in 2000 the infrastructure and technologies were not yet in place.
Not every AI idea is bad, but chances are, they may need time to realise.
As to my interactions with it, I have used it a bit, but so far, it's not doing much beyond what I could have done myself, that and you have to double-check anything it tells you!

[MicraMan]

Well where's all the high rollers fancying a poker game?

[Cat_Jam148]

20 minutes ago, MicraMan said:

Well where's all the high rollers fancying a poker game?

 

Look at the high roller over here!

 

I see your 32gb and raise you another 64gb 😅