My eight year old computer is going to be getting towards eleven years old by the time I upgrade it again at this rate.

Could you upgrade one part at a time or is it a laptop? A used GPU could be a cheaper upgrade, or a cpu if you’re not maxed out for the socket

That’s the age of the motherboard and cpu. The cpu could be upgraded significantly, but the main problem I’ve been seeing is insufficient pci-e lanes, which would require the motherboard replacement I’d been vaguely planning for early this year.

Buying used is per se not a bad idea, but the high RAM prices also mean more scammers, as it is now very profitable to scam people with fake RAM. And people need tech, so not a really an option to stop buying completely.

And I doubt prices would go down if consumers would stop buying or buying less RAM. The prices are high because the tech corporations are willing to buy RAM at basically any cost. Consumers are just a drop in the ocean at this point.

If tech is going to be usurped entirely, then reject it. I’ve started doing everything I can by mail and physical presence. Don’t buy the hype that you NEED tech. If your friends won’t let you change how you get in touch with them, then they’re not that good of friends and you don’t really need them.

If all of my stacked 15 year old computers here stop being able to access Lemmy? Oh well. It’s been fun.

This is a war. They are winning because we are willing to have a point where we say, “Well, this is the limit… I have to capitulate now.” They rub their hands together gleefully waiting for you to cave.

Don’t. Be stubborn. Because if we don’t it’s already over. Legislators and underfunded foundations are not going to save us.

Yeah I’d rather no computer or no internet at all than to accept the cloud. I’ll find other hobbies and entertainment.

They don’t care about hobbyists. They don’t need the tech.

But business users do.

So it creates a world where normal people no longer use tech, and the vast majority of tech is used by businesses for productivity purposes in the office while everyone else makes due with real life?

Like in the 90s?

Sounds like paradise to me. Starve out these cash-grab. psychologically manipulative disposable code subscription services.

If they can triple the cost for businesses while losing the hobbyists they aren’t being “starved out”. They’re making a fuckton more money while making a smaller variety of products, locking in contracts, and not having to deal with us.

Many people have been delaying their upgrades for a long time already. I bought my old RAM 2015 and tried to convince myself for so long that it’s still fine until I finally upgraded this year.

Buying RAM used often isnt really a good idea unless you have a friend who makes you a good deal. For example I could find the RAM type I wanted for 180€ used or pay 220€ for new parts. That’s not worth it for me and also doesn’t make a dent into the market.

Also remember that most new hardware is sold to either computing providers or businesses. ~70% of memory produced is consumed by AI data centers, leaving only 30% for mobile devices and personal computing.

Don’t get me wrong, consuming less and buying used are still good ambitions, but it realistically has no impact on how prices are formed.

CEX in the UK do 5 year warranties on used hardware. Realistically you would probably just get a voucher rather than cash if it failed but you could then buy another replacement at least.

I’ll still have tech but my spec requirements will decrease based on price. If that means I am compiling CDDA on a 2008 pentium laptop then so be it!

I would rather somewhat more modern and more energy efficient hardware, but when costs of hardware are so high then the energy costs of old hardware matter less.

I’m still perfectly fine in my 6+ years old Gaming PC with 16GB.

But then again I switched from Windows to Linux about 2 years ago.

Since the time I started using PCs (over 3 decades ago), I went down the route of squeezing as much as I could from my desktop PCs by upgrading the hardware piece by piece rather than periodically buying a new one - to the point that I think I’ve done maybe just 3 full replacements in those 3 decades - the upgrades most of the time being memory, graphics cards and storage upgrades as those tend to be the best bang for the buck, though a few times all the way to replacing the motherboard (which sometimes forces things like memory upgrades and once even a computer box and power source upgrade, in the transition to ATX physical format).

All this to say that in the last few years since Windows has become so bloated and inneficient, Linux’s capabilities to run Windows software have become so good and the prices of the usually best value hardware upgrades (memory, graphics cards) have become so high that, in my (I believe informed) view, the best performance upgrade for one’s PC right now for most people is literally to replace Windows with Linux.

This isn’t fanboyism speaking - I’ve been using Linux for fun since the early 90s when I would install Slackware from floppy disks, professionally for a large part of my career (which was developing software for the server side, were Linux became dominant in the 00s) and only switched my Gaming PC to it 2 years ago because I before I didn’t feel it wasn’t at all hassle free to game in Linux and I didn’t want to come how to unwind from spending all day programming and doing bug-fixing just to be stuck at diagnosing problems running some game or other in Linux - this is genuinelly my analysis based on my experience of improving my PC almost always by targetted upgrading piece by piece to improve performance rather than regularly buying new machines.

In fact, I’ve done this upgrade not just for myself but also for a family member whose Windows 8 (!) PC had become incompatible with pretty much everything the used - put Linux in, put up the desktop shortcuts for them to get to what they use (browser, e-mail), configure the thing to auto-update and it’s problem solved.

Prices are high because demand is driven by AI companies with mountains of investor cash. A consumer RAM boycott doesn’t move the needle.

The prices are going up because big tech is buying it all up. Consumer sales quantities are way down due to the prices.

Nvidia hasnt even mentioned consumer grade GPUs seperately anymore in their quarter year rapport. It has been moved over to edge computing. Their main income is data center GPUs now.

I think consumer GPUs are like a hobby for Nvidia at this point. They would make more money if they stopped making them so they could use that fab time for their higher margin enterprise GPUs instead.

Sadly not. Their 2026 consumer revenue is the highest it’s ever been. 2020, they made 11 billion, of which 5.5 was consumer. FY 2026 was 215 billion, of which 16 was gaming.

Their 2026 gaming revenue was bigger than their total revenue for 2020, and it’s also irrelevant to their bottom line.

Prices have gone up too, but I don’t think the average gaming GPU has gone up significantly more than 3x and probably less, so unit count is either unchanged or increased.

They have tripled in price it’s insane, OP is talking about RAM not GPU but they both have similar trends.

My bad, I was reading the sibling comment to mine which was about nvidia specifically and replied to the parent one, which was not. RAM has indeed way more than tripled. A 5060ti is about 50% expensive, so nvidia’s consumer unit counts are up still, but my comment was aimed somewhat wrong lol.

5060 came out last year, 2025, no?

Linux plus junk PCs. I’ve got a bunch of old computers my workplace tossed out because they wouldn’t take Windows 11 and I’ve never been happier with my tech setup in my life.

It’s probably some sort of mental condition, but I freaking love going trash-panda on our recycle PC pile and refurbing old hardware.

listen buddy, I’ve been getting computer junk every month for 20+ years. It’s all I think about and I still haven’t gotten addicted. If life has taught me anything is that the only thing you can’t get addicted to is free computer junk . how can I be addicted if it makes me happy? Computer junk is therapy, junking computers is LITERALLY my therapy. Life is free computer junk, everyday I wake up and I think about free computer junk. Every morning I grab my laptop and start looking on craigslist while I make my morning coffee. It’s literally all I think about, I can’t be at peace if I don’t junk at least 20$ a day. BUYING NEW IS JUST A PHASE. but I know a big junk pile is always right around the corner that’s why I’ll keep junking IT equipment until my wife leaves me.

I’m not building a PC or buying a computer because I can make due with what I have a few years longer. But I do desperately need a new laptop at the office, so work is paying an outrageous sum of money for a new computer.

I’m also getting a few new employees - each of which is gonna need a computer

It businesses, not hobbyists paying these increased prices.