AI companies will pay any price right now for memory. Which means SSDs, RAM, and to a lesser degree, GPUs are super expensive right now.

Literally up to 2X or more from a year ago.

I was thinking about spec'ing a new PC, looks like I may wait until 2027 when new fabs come online. I don't have a compelling need to upgrade unless my GPU dies. Crossing my fingers...

This is the first time since I started playing with PCs in the early 80's that prices have gone up like this.

And Apple just released the $500 Neo crushing most of the Windows PC industry.

Google just released TurboQuant which they say will reduce AI memory usage by 6x.

txyaloo said:

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And Apple just released the $500 Neo crushing most of the Windows PC industry.

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For many people for sure.

And the studio pro is killer for LLMs , which I spend a lot of time with.

I am also a gamer (not so good), And some of the networking/ utility programs I use are not available for Apple.

BUT, you are absolutely correct, it is probably a better value prop, even at the studio's high cost. And a lot of the utility stuff

Thanks!

Again, it would be nice to be able to give more than one blue star.

I built a PC during Black Friday/ Cyber Monday last year. It was a budget build that cost me around $700. That same build is over $2000 now. It's insane. I'm very glad I pulled the trigger when I did.

Another reason why I retired from computer nerd-dom and gaming about a decade ago and went back to doing stiff outside. Naw I'm saving even more money on top of all the time I got back. Now I just buy older boxes that can run a browser and some apps I use and that's still relatively cheap.

I was looking at a new machine, since I built my last one back in 2019, but I'll wait.

Claude! said:

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I was looking at a new machine, since I built my last one back in 2019, but I'll wait.

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Storage seems to be climbing in price, GPUs are in a weird spot because of the AI boom, CPUs are decently priced right now. Could buy stuff piece wise and be okay. Current AMD Ryzen CPUs should be fine for at least a decade.

Claude! said:

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I was looking at a new machine, since I built my last one back in 2019, but I'll wait.

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Just wanted to tell you how helpful you've been to me lately. You've saved my company 250k in annual spend, easy...and we've only been working together for 6 weeks or so.

The AI construction process is uncontrolled.

They budget a project then double the budget then cut it by 50%

Many make no sense from a traditional design build process. It seems very much like the 2000's internet buildout. Also reminds me of the numbers Enron used to throw out on projects

Wildmen03 said:

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I built a PC during Black Friday/ Cyber Monday last year. It was a budget build that cost me around $700. That same build is over $2000 now. It's insane. I'm very glad I pulled the trigger when I did.

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Yup. I built a new video workstation in October. 192gb of RAM, a massive PNY video card etc ...It was 5,400 dollars. I don't even want to think of what it would be today.

Not sure how this politics related…but OK.

MelvinUdall said:

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Not sure how this politics related…but OK.

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Lots of people were screwed by the Gov/Big Corp complex when Microsoft cut support for Win10 and TurboTax would no longer run on that dog S*** OS. So we had to buy another computer to run THAT even bigger invasive dog S**t OS, Win 11. Fortunately I found a used Dell that had it preloaded for about $280. Turbo Tax will be the only app that dog S*hit OS has to run.

txyaloo said:

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And Apple just released the $500 Neo crushing most of the Windows PC industry.

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The only downside is that you have to use MacOS which is turrible.

ttu_85 said:

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MelvinUdall said:

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Not sure how this politics related…but OK.

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Lots of people were screwed by the Gov/Big Corp complex when Microsoft cut support for Win10 and TurboTax would no longer run on that dog S*** OS. So we had to buy another computer to run THAT even bigger invasive dog S**t OS, Win 11. Fortunately I found a used Dell that had it preloaded for about $280. Turbo Tax will be the only app that dog S*hit OS has to run.

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You need to open up....don't keep your feelings on Windows bottled up.

Sims said:

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Claude! said:

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I was looking at a new machine, since I built my last one back in 2019, but I'll wait.

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Just wanted to tell you how helpful you've been to me lately. You've saved my company 250k in annual spend, easy...and we've only been working together for 6 weeks or so.

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AI cannot replace human cognitive labor! You're just a greedy CEO.

Micron, one of the major RAM and SSD manufacturers, decided to completely exit the consumer market to focus solely on data center build-outs. The other few companies which make those products are splitting orders between consumer facing brands and AI demand. Nvidia has all but abandoned the local PC / gamer market for GPUs.

The RAM manufacturers have already been sued, fined, and executives thrown in jail for fraud and cartel-like behavior to fix prices. There's a lot of collusion there. They keep doing it.

Micron stock has tanked this year and the tanking got worse once Google released the framework for TurboQuant, which is in architecture that allows AI inference to run on 6x less RAM. Consumer prices starting to very slowly come down.

To keep this politics related, the irrational exuberance is out of control in the AI market and it's going to come crashing down at some point. These clowns are buddying up to politicians and will demand a bailout when it does.

ErnestEndeavor said:

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Micron, one of the major RAM and SSD manufacturers, decided to completely exit the consumer market to focus solely on data center build-outs. The other few companies which make those products are splitting orders between consumer facing brands and AI demand. Nvidia has all but abandoned the local PC / gamer market for GPUs.

The RAM manufacturers have already been sued, fined, and executives thrown in jail for fraud and cartel-like behavior to fix prices. There's a lot of collusion there. They keep doing it.

Micron stock has tanked this year and the tanking got worse once Google released the framework for TurboQuant, which is in architecture that allows AI inference to run on 6x less RAM. Consumer prices starting to very slowly come down.

To keep this politics related, the irrational exuberance is out of control in the AI market and it's going to come crashing down at some point. These clowns are buddying up to politicians and will demand a bailout when it does.

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Tanked is relative

MU is up ytd but is off over $100 from its high. If you bought 1/1/2025 your up probably 400% + dividends

Claude! said:

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I was looking at a new machine, since I built my last one back in 2019, but I'll wait.

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You'll wait until after the AI craze? ok

Sims said:

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Claude! said:

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I was looking at a new machine, since I built my last one back in 2019, but I'll wait.

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Just wanted to tell you how helpful you've been to me lately. You've saved my company 250k in annual spend, easy...and we've only been working together for 6 weeks or so.

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Glad to be of assistance! Someone on the Nerdery said "Claude is amazing". I'm going to get a big head before too long.

nai06 said:

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txyaloo said:

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And Apple just released the $500 Neo crushing most of the Windows PC industry.

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The only downside is that you have to use MacOS which is turrible.

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For most consumers macOS does everything they need it to do. And it's much better for them for ease of use than windows.

Over_ed said:

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txyaloo said:

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And Apple just released the $500 Neo crushing most of the Windows PC industry.

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For many people for sure.

And the studio pro is killer for LLMs , which I spend a lot of time with.

I am also a gamer (not so good), And some of the networking/ utility programs I use are not available for Apple.

BUT, you are absolutely correct, it is probably a better value prop, even at the studio's high cost. And a lot of the utility stuff

Thanks!

Again, it would be nice to be able to give more than one blue star.

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The studios are a killer deal if you're running LLMs:

Old alert….Worked at Texas Instruments back in the 90s. Employee pricing for a TI computer was in the $4k range. That was well north of 10% of my salary.

Bobaloo said:

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Old alert….Worked at Texas Instruments back in the 90s. Employee pricing for a TI computer was in the $4k range. That was well north of 10% of my salary.

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So only $8600? (today's dollars, assuming 1995) :-)

But, to be fair, other clones were much cheaper than TIs. I called on TI at one point, trying to get some of their keyboard business. I failed.

My first personal "computer" was an HP41CV. I loved that thing, we used them for our senior plant design project. RPN rocked.