DDR4 costs soar as manufacturers pull the plug — panic buying and stockpiling impact DDR4 spot pricing as supply dwindles

[Darude - Sandstorm intensifies]

i_O is lovely

Get a new case, and fan, and maybe a liquid cooling setup too. And switch operating systems while you’re at it. Might as well upgrade to larger SSDs. And it’s a good opportunity to go down the mechanical keyboard rabbit hole as well.

Correct. Yes.

... But also with a lot of other perks and some downsides... if you are willing to consider a different paradigm for a pc build.

I say: Adapt, Improvise, Overcome.

I present to you....

... the Minisforum BD 795i SE.

https://store.minisforum.com/products/minisforum-motherboard

https://www.amazon.com/MINISFORUM-Motherboard-BD795i-SE-PCIe4-0/dp/B0DQ8WXMKP

ITX Mobo + soldered on AMD 7945hx processor, outperforms by a significant margin any standard cpu+mobo combo you could get for the current price, which is under $400 pre tax.

So thats a mobo, high powered labtop AM4 cpu, that uses ddr5 sodimm ram.

Oh and you can just slot any ole normal GPU into its PCIe x16 v5.0 slot, its got two standard SSD M2 2280 gen 4 slots you can put your existing SSD(s) in.

There you go, for your consideration, there's your upgrade/sidegrade path, or your framework for just a new build, given that GPUs now basically cost as much or more than ... everything else in a pc combined.

........

Pop out your old mobo, this thing is ITX so it'll probably fit in your old case, though that isn't guaranteed.

Grab 32gb (2x16) of 5200/5400/5600 sodimm ddr5 ram for roughly $90 to $110.

(You could go as high as 2x48gb = 96gb but frankly 95% of people will be a ok with 32gb)

Sell your now apparently appreciating in value standard form ddr4 ram.

Grab a noctua 120mm nf-f12 pwm fan for $20, or some equivalent from your preferred fan company, slap that on the massive built in cpu heatspreader, you're good to go.

Sell old cpu heatsink/fan or aio loop.

You may lose the ability to run... an extensive argb case fan setup without some finagling on that front, but who cares, you wont need all of them, this is a very energy and heat efficient cpu.

If you've got some kind of nest of internal archive HDDs, yeah, that may be a bit of a problem too, but realistically, not too many people do that, and you can put an internal HDD into a ~$20 enclosure and just turn it into an external hardrive, something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/X-MEDIA-XM-EN3451-BK-3-5-Inch-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B00ARNCYEU

Oh and also switching to this kind of paradigm, paired with say a non XT AMD 9070, this'll do basically all gaming you could want at 1440p, and will almost certainly substantially lower your total setup power draw... if you're maybe also worried about just general rising energy prices.

Which you probably should be.

You can also now consider just downsizing your rig's case, and power supply, to a portable ITX form factor, or an mATX form factor, should the idea of your PC not weighing 60+ pounds appeal to you.

There are a good number of ITX cases that will fit most full size GPUs, some via a riser cable, some not even needing one.

Yeah, when you want to upgrade your PC but the parts in your PC don't support upgrading, you'll have to replace those parts. Where's the issue?

Yup, still happily running a DDR4 build and am considering upgrading to one of the 3D chips at some point.

I think that falls under the category of "RAM is not currently working". If you need 32, 16GB isn't working for you.

You mean memory training?
Thats only really an issue during first boots or after a reset due to FW updates (or you didnt turn off memory training after each boot).

Initial Training isn't done on every start. Training only happens when you change the configuration.

I'm not sure - I don't measure it. It's in my home server running Linux. It does everything I want and is >90% idle most of the time - so it's fast enough. And I just realized I lied in my original comment - my laptop has DDR4 RAM, but it's already at max. capacity so I won't have to worry about buying more.

What kind of tasks do you do that require over one hundred gigabytes of RAM? Just curious. Video editing?

I regularly use over 16-24GB of my 32 GB, and considering I just had to replace 4 8s with 2 16s, I'm honestly kinda tempted to get another pair just to have knowing the shit that's coming down the pipe.

you must have correctly moved on from Chrome

That’s reassuring, gotta make sure I take care of mine. The pc market has been too messy the last few years.

I also have 64, but I've seen up to 34 in use a couple times. I could have stayed with 48gb, but the timings/cas latency was much better on the 64gb kit, than running mismatched sizes across 4 slots

I have 8GB in my laptop running mint, its used for browsing, office work, 3D print slicing, and occasionally I torrent a file from it...it is absolutely no issue whatsoever and it never even breaks 4GB use unless it's actively slicing a 3D model. 16GB minimum I can agree with for gaming, but for desktop use as mentioned above you can easily get by with less.

Wow. I wonder how well that'll work out, like stability, need to lower frequency...

AI is speeding up the process of retiring DDR4 if I am not wrong.