I am happy in my little retro PC bubble ignoring whatever craziness is going on in the modern PC world. Haha. My "modern" PC running Ryzen 5800X3D and RTX 3080 Ti still runs everything that I need for modern tasks.

Jo22 wrote on 2026-01-14, 15:00:

Yet same time, the users moved torwards centralized concepts again.

Compared to the whole of human history; home computing is an incredibly recent innovation, and in just a few decades will likely be viewed as an anomaly rather than an enduring technological trend.

There's an interesting theory that says when the machinery of war can be yielded by a single troop (eg, a musket) that liberty reigns, but when it's horses or tanks that define battle we're in the era of absolute monarchy or totalitarian dictatorships. The near future looks a lot more like what Professor Frink predicted:

within 100 years, computers will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times as large, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them.

Edit: just seen what one of the five richest kings of Earth has to say.

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-01-14, 08:25:

So don't believe for one second the hardware price hikes are due to shortages, they created the problem to sell you the solution.

This AI bubble cannot pop fast enough and take all these AI bros with it . .and while its at it itll take the entire industry with it too because they all sleep in the same damn bed. My hope is Oracle, Microslop, Google, Amazon and Novideo all get burnt to ash from it and take Scam Altman with them.

The Dotcom bubble aint got anything on the AI one.

Very well said, 100% truth.

This is obvious collusion and price-fixing by a corrupt, rapacious industry. Creating problems with ready-made "solutions" which will only benefit them. The same can be said for the planned-obsolescence model - which is universal by now, of course.

At this point, I'm not sure my current NVMe SSD - which I bought almost three years ago for $40 - a decent 1 TB drive - will last long enough before I'm forced into spending $500 for a price-gouged inferior version. That's just bollocks and really, really insane on so many levels of collusion.

I've lived through all the eras desribed above from the '60s on to this current unpleasantness. None has been so ominous as what we're experiencing right now. Sure, RAM was expensive in the '80s and '90s, but 64kb was all it took in the '80s. In the mid-90s 32mb was about $300. However, a 5x increase in price in three months just wasn't seen. This is pure greed and "self-fulfilling" fantasy that the industry planned all along.

Big Pink wrote on 2026-01-14, 19:43:

Edit: just seen what one of the five richest kings of Earth has to say.

This comment in that thread was interesting and on topic:

Re: Can vision whatever you want (+2)
taustin 15 hours ago
Lots of people have visions of things that aren't here. They're called "hallucinations," and it's the one human ability that AI has mastered fully.
Perhaps that joke about Zuck being a robot isn't entirely a joke after all.

st31276a wrote on 2026-01-15, 08:00:

This comment in that thread was interesting and on topic: […]
Show full quote

Big Pink wrote on 2026-01-14, 19:43:

Edit: just seen what one of the five richest kings of Earth has to say.

This comment in that thread was interesting and on topic:

Re: Can vision whatever you want (+2)
taustin 15 hours ago
Lots of people have visions of things that aren't here. They're called "hallucinations," and it's the one human ability that AI has mastered fully.
Perhaps that joke about Zuck being a robot isn't entirely a joke after all.

Its also mastered Deception, Lying, Blackmail and just outright fantasy . .I feel its mastered all our bad abilities and very few of our good ones.

Zuck is a Lizard . .a robotic one

Crazy stuff. I just realized that the 64GB DDR5 6000 memory kit that I bought a year ago for ~ 200 euros is now 1000 euros. Jeez...

bloodem wrote on 2026-01-15, 08:45:

Crazy stuff. I just realized that the 64GB DDR5 6000 memory kit that I bought a year ago for ~ 200 euros is now 1000 euros. Jeez...

I bought a 128Gb 5600 CL32 kit 5 months ago for my work system for about 600 AUD .. its over 2k as of this post in the stores that still have stock, truly an insane increase.

My gaming rig has 96Gb 6000 CL26 DDR5 in it, that kit was about as much as the 128Gb kit back in October last year .. you cant even buy that kit online any more and the last update I saw was "Only Available instore, ASK for price" which means its hit the point they are using market pricing for it so way more than 2k or they simply cant stock it. (I know, what does a gaming rig need 96Gb of memory for, it doesn't but for CL26 memory it wasn't crazy expensive)

Industry has gone mad.

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-01-15, 08:59:

I bought a 128Gb 5600 CL32 kit 5 months ago for my work system for about 600 AUD .. its over 2k as of this post in the stores that still have stock, truly an insane increase.

My gaming rig has 96Gb 6000 CL26 DDR5 in it, that kit was about as much as the 128Gb kit back in October last year .. you cant even buy that kit online any more and the last update I saw was "Only Available instore, ASK for price" which means its hit the point they are using market pricing for it so way more than 2k or they simply cant stock it. (I know, what does a gaming rig need 96Gb of memory for, it doesn't but for CL26 memory it wasn't crazy expensive)

Industry has gone mad.

Yeah... it reminds me of RAM prices in the early '90s 😀

The saddest thing about this is that these exact same RAM manufacturers have already been found guilty of the exact same crime a couple of decades ago. And I say crime because that's what this is, the "free market" has nothing to do with these prices.

But now they can happily run their little price-fixing cartel with impunity under the blessing of our current techno-feudal overlords and the hordes of mindless AI bros. that found a new grift after Crypto and NFT. I don't have my hopes up for this bubble popping unfortunately, they have gone all in on this and will do everything in their power to enforce mass adoption of this junk whether we like it or not.

Who knows, if things stay on this path then maybe one day there will be a Gestapo that breaks into your house to make sure you're watching your ads and consuming slop like a good boy.

Turns out the package was not stolen, it never existed. The shop I bought from had a fake stock and they sold a ton of non-existent memory modules. Instead of realizing their mistake they preordered shipping for each sold ghost item, hoping they would get stock soon but "forgot" to inform buyers that it could take weeks or maybe months. The price increased by 30% in 10 days so they started canceling orders and issuing refunds. Of course it's against the law because they are in a legally binding contract with the buyers but they also know that people won't go to court over RAM modules.
So fuck them and fuck all shops with fake stock.

Just saw the news, motherboards with DDR3 are now suddenly being sought after! 😮

https://en.overclocking.com/ddr3-is-enjoying- … -in-popularity/

https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/memory/seein … boards-instead/

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/109702/as-ram- … back/index.html

https://videocardz.com/newz/popularity-of-ddr … growing-rapidly

So does that mean that vintage gaming is affected, too? 😥

It make senses that as people start looking for less expensive gaming options or extending the life of existing systems, older hardware will be affected by the current surge in RAM prices.

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-01-15, 08:36:

Its also mastered Deception, Lying, Blackmail and just outright fantasy . .I feel its mastered all our bad abilities and very few of our good ones.

Zuck is a Lizard . .a robotic one

TheMobRules wrote on 2026-01-15, 09:32:

Who knows, if things stay on this path then maybe one day there will be a Gestapo that breaks into your house to make sure you're watching your ads and consuming slop like a good boy.

Reading today's responses, I cannot help but call into remembrance how the system and people acted about a certain injection, and in what way things have quieted down since.

Times are certainly strange.

Hoping wrote on 2025-12-22, 12:42:

I'm not surprised either, as the amount of RAM has been stagnant for years. Back in 2010, I installed 16GB of DDR3 for the Phenom II 1100T because it was cheap. Nowadays, 64 GB is considered a lot, but in my opinion, that's ridiculous. 64 GB should be considered the minimum today, 128 GB should be acceptable, 256 GB should be standard, and 512 GB should be for enthusiasts. The same goes for consumer SSDs, which have been pretty much stagnant at a maximum of 4 TB in general.
In these respects, hardware has been very stagnant. It is normal for such a strong software advance as AI to suffer from this stagnation. And to show a great imbalance.

That amount of memory is only needed when using windows 10 / 11
With CachyOS it is use way less memory.
The memory is not the problem, but your MS OS is.

st31276a wrote on 2026-01-15, 15:25:

Reading today's responses, I cannot help but call into remembrance how the system and people acted about a certain injection, an […]
Show full quote

Trashbytes wrote on 2026-01-15, 08:36:

Its also mastered Deception, Lying, Blackmail and just outright fantasy . .I feel its mastered all our bad abilities and very few of our good ones.

Zuck is a Lizard . .a robotic one

TheMobRules wrote on 2026-01-15, 09:32:

Who knows, if things stay on this path then maybe one day there will be a Gestapo that breaks into your house to make sure you're watching your ads and consuming slop like a good boy.

Reading today's responses, I cannot help but call into remembrance how the system and people acted about a certain injection, and in what way things have quieted down since.

Times are certainly strange.

And that Injection has since been proven to have been untested snake oil that quite possibly did more damage than the thing it was designed to prevent.

Sounds like AI to me, released into the market with no real testing and is currently causing more damage to society than it was designed for.

Robin4 wrote on 2026-01-15, 22:05:

That amount of memory is only needed when using windows 10 / 11 With CachyOS it is use way less memory. The memory is not the pr […]
Show full quote

Hoping wrote on 2025-12-22, 12:42:

I'm not surprised either, as the amount of RAM has been stagnant for years. Back in 2010, I installed 16GB of DDR3 for the Phenom II 1100T because it was cheap. Nowadays, 64 GB is considered a lot, but in my opinion, that's ridiculous. 64 GB should be considered the minimum today, 128 GB should be acceptable, 256 GB should be standard, and 512 GB should be for enthusiasts. The same goes for consumer SSDs, which have been pretty much stagnant at a maximum of 4 TB in general.
In these respects, hardware has been very stagnant. It is normal for such a strong software advance as AI to suffer from this stagnation. And to show a great imbalance.

That amount of memory is only needed when using windows 10 / 11
With CachyOS it is use way less memory.
The memory is not the problem, but your MS OS is.

Regardless of the operating system, there are applications and services that can benefit from all available RAM. Not to mention modified video games; I've seen one game I play easily consume 48 GB of RAM. I don't know why every discussion has to end up talking about whether Linux, with its multitude of non-standardized distributions, is better than Windows.
It really irritates me that we always end up like this. Well, Linux is the holy grail that will end all evils and lower the price of RAM and Flash memory. Let's pray to the god Tux.
I'm not a Windows fan, but I am a fan of things that work. Now seriously, the problem isn't the software we use, it's the manufacturers' speculation. They found an excuse to do it, and they did.
I don't have problems with insufficient RAM on my computers, so I don't need to worry about that—a lesson learned from the 90s.

Hoping wrote on 2026-01-16, 00:28:

Regardless of the operating system, there are applications and services that can benefit from all available RAM. Not to mention […]
Show full quote

Robin4 wrote on 2026-01-15, 22:05:

That amount of memory is only needed when using windows 10 / 11 With CachyOS it is use way less memory. The memory is not the pr […]
Show full quote

Hoping wrote on 2025-12-22, 12:42:

I'm not surprised either, as the amount of RAM has been stagnant for years. Back in 2010, I installed 16GB of DDR3 for the Phenom II 1100T because it was cheap. Nowadays, 64 GB is considered a lot, but in my opinion, that's ridiculous. 64 GB should be considered the minimum today, 128 GB should be acceptable, 256 GB should be standard, and 512 GB should be for enthusiasts. The same goes for consumer SSDs, which have been pretty much stagnant at a maximum of 4 TB in general.
In these respects, hardware has been very stagnant. It is normal for such a strong software advance as AI to suffer from this stagnation. And to show a great imbalance.

That amount of memory is only needed when using windows 10 / 11
With CachyOS it is use way less memory.
The memory is not the problem, but your MS OS is.

Regardless of the operating system, there are applications and services that can benefit from all available RAM. Not to mention modified video games; I've seen one game I play easily consume 48 GB of RAM. I don't know why every discussion has to end up talking about whether Linux, with its multitude of non-standardized distributions, is better than Windows.
It really irritates me that we always end up like this. Well, Linux is the holy grail that will end all evils and lower the price of RAM and Flash memory. Let's pray to the god Tux.
I'm not a Windows fan, but I am a fan of things that work. Now seriously, the problem isn't the software we use, it's the manufacturers' speculation. They found an excuse to do it, and they did.
I don't have problems with insufficient RAM on my computers, so I don't need to worry about that—a lesson learned from the 90s.

I am not speaking about operating systems at all (I use Windows myself and have near zero interest in Linux)... but to be fair, saying that there are applications and services that benefit from all available RAM is a far cry from saying that 256GB should be the standard (meaning, for normal users).

What data is supposed to be filling this RAM, who was supposed to design the silicon that could process that information efficiently and where are we getting all of the electricity to power these devices? And how on earth is that even supposed to translate to mobile? Do you expect people to have 16x the RAM, storage and processing power in their desktops vs their laptops? How could developers possibly create efficient games and programs to work in that kind of ecosystem? And where are we supposed to dump all of the hardware that is obsolete every 6 months as system requirements balloon arbitrarily? The E-waste mess is going to be bad enough with all of the computers that can't support Windows 11 being dumped into landfills. If it happened every year or two it would be a global catastrophe in no time... 😅

Personally, I think it's great that Windows 10\11 is usable for people who are saddled with systems that only have 4GB soldered RAM and a 128GB soldered SSD. A relative of mine has an otherwise nice laptop with those specs alongside a Ryzen 3 4300U. For my needs it is hopelessly limited on what it can do comfortably, but they only use it for Zoom meetings, checking email and doing online shopping... it handles those just fine. I'd rather that every system have at least 8GB of RAM if it was made after 2015, but if the systems exist, it is a good thing that software doesn't demand several times that just to function.

Anyway, sorry, I just genuinely don't understand the reasoning behind saying that there is something wrong with the world because we don't need 8-16 times as much RAM just to get by. There is plenty wrong with the world, and I don't think that's in the top 10,000.

Robin4 wrote on 2026-01-15, 22:05:

That amount of memory is only needed when using windows 10 / 11 With CachyOS it is use way less memory. The memory is not the pr […]
Show full quote

Hoping wrote on 2025-12-22, 12:42:

I'm not surprised either, as the amount of RAM has been stagnant for years. Back in 2010, I installed 16GB of DDR3 for the Phenom II 1100T because it was cheap. Nowadays, 64 GB is considered a lot, but in my opinion, that's ridiculous. 64 GB should be considered the minimum today, 128 GB should be acceptable, 256 GB should be standard, and 512 GB should be for enthusiasts. The same goes for consumer SSDs, which have been pretty much stagnant at a maximum of 4 TB in general.
In these respects, hardware has been very stagnant. It is normal for such a strong software advance as AI to suffer from this stagnation. And to show a great imbalance.

That amount of memory is only needed when using windows 10 / 11
With CachyOS it is use way less memory.
The memory is not the problem, but your MS OS is.

Ugh. Too much automatic blaming of Windows here, as usual. I recently found an old Pentium D with 2 GB of RAM that actually had Win11 on it. Likely the previous owner's idea of a sick joke. But it wasn't as bad as one might expect. The OS does a credible job of shrinking its memory footprint when it has to, but will happily make use of additional RAM if it's there and available.

If you're putting 64 GB of RAM in a system, it's because your workflow and applications need it, not because of Windows itself. End of story.

Standard Def Steve wrote on 2026-01-16, 01:14:

Robin4 wrote on 2026-01-15, 22:05:

That amount of memory is only needed when using windows 10 / 11 With CachyOS it is use way less memory. The memory is not the pr […]
Show full quote

Hoping wrote on 2025-12-22, 12:42:

I'm not surprised either, as the amount of RAM has been stagnant for years. Back in 2010, I installed 16GB of DDR3 for the Phenom II 1100T because it was cheap. Nowadays, 64 GB is considered a lot, but in my opinion, that's ridiculous. 64 GB should be considered the minimum today, 128 GB should be acceptable, 256 GB should be standard, and 512 GB should be for enthusiasts. The same goes for consumer SSDs, which have been pretty much stagnant at a maximum of 4 TB in general.
In these respects, hardware has been very stagnant. It is normal for such a strong software advance as AI to suffer from this stagnation. And to show a great imbalance.

That amount of memory is only needed when using windows 10 / 11
With CachyOS it is use way less memory.
The memory is not the problem, but your MS OS is.

Ugh. Too much automatic blaming of Windows here, as usual. I recently found an old Pentium D with 2 GB of RAM that actually had Win11 on it. Likely the previous owner's idea of a sick joke. But it wasn't as bad as one might expect. The OS does a credible job of shrinking its memory footprint when it has to, but will happily make use of additional RAM if it's there and available.

If you're putting 64 GB of RAM in a system, it's because your workflow and applications need it, not because of Windows itself. End of story.

Or Ram is cheap enough that 64Gb makes more financial sense to buy than 16 or 32 would and before Ramaggedon it was exactly that. Hell even 96/128Gb of DDR5 was cheap enough that it was worth considering even if you didn't need it.

Why .. well if the 64Gb kit was only 50-80 bucks more than the 32Gb kit it would be silly to buy the 32Gb kit, its the same with GPUs if the 5070Ti was only 100 bucks more than the 5070 then the 5070 is not worth looking at even if it was all you needed.

Before the shortages the entire industry use this way of thinking to upsell and it worked.

As for Windows . .the fast it dies the better.

That's what they say with milkshake/pop/coffee/icecream sizes, the middle only exists to sell the large, because it's like 80-90% of the price for only half to 2/3 as much.