At this rate, my PC will be in service into the 2030’s. Crazy considering I built it like 8 years ago.
After RAM and SSDs, PSUs and CPU coolers are next in line for price hikes
Submitted 22 hours ago by schizoidman@lemmy.zip to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
MOARbid1@piefed.social 21 hours ago
acosmichippo@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
i guess i will finally be forced to go through my steam backlog.
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 17 hours ago
I think that is the main goal, otherwise you can’t fully enslave consumers/citizens.
SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 20 hours ago
Who knows what technology will bring us in 5 years. With SSDs, 15 year old machines are still functional for about everything but gaming.
floofloof@lemmy.ca 19 hours ago
It’ll be cloud-based rental computing with compulsory AI spyware and tiered pricing that determines what they allow you to do. The base tier will have just a whopping 2GB of RAM and 30GB for all your file storage needs for just $25 per month. If, one month, you can’t afford it, no computing for you, and goodbye software and data. The small print will specify that anything you create on Microsoft 365 Cloud Copilot Windows Home Edition for Peasants and Serfs is Microsoft’s property for all eternity to use, share or sell as they see fit, and you waive any right to ever challenge them legally. Private messaging will be impossible and Linux or (heaven forbid) non-vibe programming will be punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a fine of millions of dollars.
Innovation is so exciting. It will have cute little animated AI chums tailored to our individual personalities and consumption profiles, reporting our every move to the authorities! I can’t wait!
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 17 hours ago
‘New AAA gaming’ you mean.
We have millions of good gameplay hours in old titles.
Unevolve, unadapt!dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Hell, I have a Sandy Bridge based machine I built in 2012. It’s getting there, 14 years old now, and with its 1080ti in there it can still play most games just fine.
Mainstream PC performance really hit its plateau by, when, like 2018? I imagine somebody with a machine that’s only 8 years old will probably do just fine unless some critical and irreplaceable component in it explodes.
Damage@feddit.it 10 hours ago
Idk, even browsing the web nowadays takes a shitton of processing power
theyoyomaster@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
So glad I built mine last year. I still wish I had gotten a bit more ram but I didn’t realize that the price gouging I was fighting at the time was just the beginning.
cley_faye@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
CPU cooler, as in, cheap-ass fans and a slab of metal with fins? Is that hard to come by too? Or is it professional grifters at work…
This is why we can’t have nice things.
(I know radiators are more than metal slabs, fans can be quite elaborate, and there can be liquid in the mix, but seriously)
roofuskit@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Are you all ready for subscription based PCs? Because they are going to make sure that’s the only way you can afford decent hardware.
InFerNo@lemmy.ml 1 hour ago
Nvidia already does this with their game streaming service. Buy cheap hardware for yourself, then play games as if you’re running a 5090.
sundray@lemmus.org 20 hours ago
Or it’ll be like buying a used car, 36 monthly payments and your PC will finally be yours!
can@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
I think we’re already there.
roofuskit@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
More like you’ll access better hardware over the web with a subscription fee.
SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 21 hours ago
I can hook you up right now with a solid Dell Optiplex 9010, your choice Windows or Linux, just $15.99 a month lease. If anything goes wrong with the hardware, we’ll send you a new one and you just ship the old one back.
*Not responsible for lost data due to failure to use proper backup strategies.
ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 19 hours ago
I’d recommend to dystopia a bit harder - if this type of CaaS happens, I expect you won’t get to lay a finger on any real local computing hardware. I think you’d have a computing equivalent of a Raspberry Pi which is DRM-locked to a specific service provider’s cloud computing services, and a remote desktop or streaming GPU service.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
And NVidia are ramping up their subsciption prices already…
sturmblast@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
This timeline sucks
neukenindekeuken@sh.itjust.works 9 hours ago
This has nothing to do with needing semiconductor and micro controller factories though. You can build these from any electronics fabrication company on earth pretty much, so I expect that a bunch of people will fill in the gap if the prices start going up like crazy.
huquad@lemmy.ml 19 hours ago
Im skeptical of this. I think the opposite might happen, at least in terms of supply. Ramm/GPU price hikes are all supply driven. If no one is building/buying a computer due to increased ramm/GPU prices, then I bet a lot of PSUs/coolers/cases and other consumer gear that isn’t used in the datacenter will be overstocked.
axexrx@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
When theres increased demand, companies raise prices because of scarcity. When theres decreased demand, they raise prices so they can make their profits over fewer units sold.
huquad@lemmy.ml 11 hours ago
This works in a vacuum, but falls apart once you have competition to drive prices down. That said, the world is falling into cartels that price fix anyway.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Basic economics is understamding supply-demand. Advanced economics is knowing when it’s being manipulated.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
I have to agree. I mean come on, cpu coolers? There’s nothing proprietary about them, nothing particularly high tech or difficult to produce, it’s a heat sink and a fan… Fancy ones may have a coolant loop, but still… I just can’t see any reason that prices would go up noticeably for such easy to manufacturer, commodity parts.
I’m just saying, it seems a little early to start screaming “the sky is falling”.
MaggiWuerze@feddit.org 11 hours ago
They still have to be made from something, and it just so happens that ‘something’ overlaps with stuff datacenters currently vacuum out of the market
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 hours ago
Companies (e.g. HP, Dell, Lenovo) will still buy PCs. The individual like you and me will be a drop in a bucket as big as the whole ocean.
sundray@lemmus.org 20 hours ago
Power Supply OEMs: “Hey! We want in on the price gouging too!”
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 hours ago
Are there notable constraints for ‘just making more’ of these items?
Like I know short term shortages are possible for everything, but what components of a PSU or Cooler are difficult to source or manufacture? Combined with consumer versions of these not typically having a lot of direct overlap with their datacenter counterparts, do we really think this is going to be a major issue?
mushroommunk@lemmy.today 21 hours ago
This increase is due to the cost of copper and tin shooting up. Copper is up 45% over the past year. Coolers are basically nothing but copper. Copper is hitting record highs due to much larger economic pressures too large for a Lemmy comment. So like if you want to find untapped copper vein and start a mining company then yeah you can lower the price but that’s about the only way right now.
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 hours ago
I looked around a bit more after this site wouldn’t load and it seems like you are ahead of me, you hit the real reason.
Raw material costs seems to be the primary problem.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 17 hours ago
Most coolers are aluminium actually.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
It says in the article.
The reason given is rising raw materials costs, i.e. metals, and the price increases they’re talking about are on the order of around 10% which is obviously a slap in the face along with everything else that’s going on in the hardware world, but by the same token pretty minimal compared to said selfsame everything else.
I think I paid $40 for my CPU cooler. So, if I ever need to buy a another one for some reason and now it’s $44, well, I guess I’ll live.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 21 hours ago
The machinery. Takes years to make and has to be maintained and only had a certain output. It’s been this way for 100s of years.
And the market waves means that companies don’t want to buy machines so they can’t use them once the price goes back down.
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 hours ago
Yeah, but these are not exactly complex parts, especially compared to RAM/etc. RAM fabrication is orders of magnitude more difficult than the parts we’re looking at here.
I’m not saying it’s something someone could get going tomorrow, but beyond the PCB for the PSU everything else is fairly standard and mostly interchangeable. People have made PSUs in their basements. And, for CPU coolers, it’s effectively a piece of metal with a fan attached. If we’ve lost the capability to machine more aluminum and copper I feel like our problems have evolved beyond computer hardware.
Bubs@lemmy.zip 21 hours ago
Biggest and probably current constraint is the time it takes to create new manufacturing facilities. With how bad things are, I would imagine they have already maxed the output of the available production lines.
From what I’ve seen working in manufacturing and production facilities, it takes a handful of years to set up new production lines and many more to set up while new production facilities.
Hadriscus@jlai.lu 20 hours ago
I feel super fortunate for having just built a new machine just months ago. Otherwise I would have had to dial down the specs a lot
TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 17 hours ago
This is a pretty big tell that it has nothing to do with AI, it’s just price gouging for price gouging sake’s. Data center setups don’t use consumer level PSUs and CPUs. If anything, their price should be going down given that the rise in RAM, SSDs, and GPUs are leading to people building less PCs and waiting longer to do so. The supply for these components should be going up due to excess supply.