alt Hacker NewsThis reminds me of the recent LaurieWired video presenting a hypothetical of, "what if we stopped making CPUs": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2OJFqs8bUk
Spoiler, but the answer is basically that old hardware rules the day because it lasts longer and is more reliable of timespans of decades.
DDR5 32GB is currently going for ~$330 on Amazon
DDR4 32GB is currently going for ~$130 on Amazon
DDR3 32GB is currently going for ~50 on Amazon (4x8GB)
For anyone where cost is a concern, using older hardware seems like a particularly easy choice, especially if a person is comfortable with a Linux environment, since the massive droves of recently retired Windows 10 incompatible hardware works great with your Linux distro of choice.
Replies
Unfortunately, older RAM also means an older motherboard, which also means older socket and older CPUs. It works, but it's not usually a drop in replacement.
Nice, My current PC uses DDR4 Time to dust off my 2012 PC and put Linux on it.
a 2x16 ddr4 kit I bought in 2020 for $160 is now $220. older memory is relatively cheap but not cheaper than before at all.
> works great with your Linux distro of choice.
...or you could go with FreeBSD. There's even a brand new release that just came out!
Yes, DDR3 is the lowest CAS latency and lasts ALOT longer.
Just like SSDs from 2010 have 100.000 writes per bit instead of below 10.000.
CPUs might even follow the same durability pattern but that remains to be seen.
Keep your old machines alive and backed up!
I bought 384 GB of DDR5-4800 RDIMM a few months back for a Zen 4c system with lots of I/O like dual 25G NIC's and ten MCIO x8 ports... So far it has been the best value for money compared to any memory before it. The bandwidth is nuts. Power consumption went DOWN compared to DDR4. Doesn't matter much if you got two sticks, but as soon as you get into 6+ territory, it does matter a lot. The same goes for NVMe's.
A friend built a new rig and went with DDR4 and a 5800x3d just because of this as he needed a lot of ram.
If everyone went for DDR4 and DDR3, surely the cost would go up. There is no additional supply there, as they are no longer being made.