Electronics

[Janey 3]

I got my HP laptop at Amazon; it's what I'm using to post here.

[gardenman]

There's a lot of chaos in the computer/technology field these days with prices soaring due to data centers buying up as much RAM and storage as they can find. SSD/hard drive prices have pretty much tripled. RAM prices have tripled and in some cases quadrupled. A one-terabyte SSD I bought back in November for $70 was selling for over $200 the last I looked.

Video game consoles (Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo) have all raised (Sony and Microsoft) or are planning to raise (Nintendo come September) their prices due to the issues. 

As pre-existing contracts with suppliers expire, the new prices are shocking many companies. The data centers have created something of a bidding war for components, and it's impacting consumer products in a big way. That could be affecting the frequency you see tech products offered and the pricing.

[Spurt]

As @gardenman said....

The massive price surge driving up laptop costs by 15% to 40% in 2026 due to a memory supply crisis driven by AI data centers gobbling up 70% of global memory production. AI hardware operators are buying up massive volumes of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server-grade DDR5 chips. Major manufacturers (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) have shifted production to these highly profitable enterprise chips, leaving less supply for everyday consumer devices

If you are looking to purchase or upgrade a PC experts recommend buying soon before prices increase further, or specifically looking for models with upgradeable RAM so you can add more later. 

Also think about it as phones and even cars get more tech savvy its gonna impact these prices too....WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY 🙁 💻 

[gardenman]

Yeah, either buy soon or wait a year or two. There should be a flood of slightly used components once the data center bubble bursts. And it will burst. How many data centers does one country need? They're popping up everywhere, and there are going to be way, way more than needed. If a data center isn't making money, it'll get shut down and the components sold off. RAM and SSD prices should drop like a rock when the bottom falls out. 

I just looked up the current Amazon pricing on the SSD (Lexar NM790 1 TB with heatsink) I bought back in November for $69.99, and it's now $229.99. Once the bottom falls out of the data center market, they'll be $10-$20 used (maybe less) and back to $70-ish new. 

It's hard to know when prices will peak, but we should be nearly there. Then expect a sharp drop in prices. Buying anything at or near the peak is usually a bad idea.

Some companies are still using components they bought before the insanity, so if you can find a good price, grab it. Nintendo is holding off on the price increase in the Switch 2 until September, so if you want one, grab it before then. Once companies calculate in the new prices into their products, prices across the board will rise until the data center bubble bursts. Then the prices will return to more normal levels.

[Mz iMac]

Philly has a lot of data centers. 

The county I live in has only 1.  Also the county has a 6-month moratorium on data centers amid growing statewide concern about the energy-hungry operations. 

[gardenman]

I strongly suspect we'll see a crash in the data center business model in the very near future, with just a few emerging as the winners. They aren't cheap to build/operate, and how many do we need? I'm pretty sure supply will far outstrip demand, and things will get pretty messy for a bit.

If you don't mind buying used computer parts (memory, SSDs, CPUs, GPUs, etc.) there will likely be a flood of them hitting the market in a year or two, selling for pennies on the dollar as the bubble bursts. 

There's something of a gold rush mentality taking place and not enough market analysis. Very few of the people who raced to get in on the gold rush came out ahead. This will likely be a lot like the dot.com bust a few decades ago. If everyone is doing something, it's probably a bad time to start doing the same thing.