Nvidia encourages retailers to look after gamers

[Corky34]

RAM production has always gone through cycles of price hikes followed by oversupply.

It isn't surprising that people don't want to build a new fab to make more ram (the only way to improve the situation) when building that fab will drop prices making it difficult to get the money back from building the fab.

I was just reading this Reuters article from a few weeks ago and it's not like they're not making a tidy profit that could be spent on new fabs instead of investors...

Macquarie estimates Samsung’s chip division’s operating profit margin jumped to 47 percent last year from 26.5 percent in 2016, and will rise further to 55.5 percent this year.

[DanceswithUnix]

I was just reading this Reuters article from a few weeks ago and it's not like they're not making a tidy profit that could be spent on new fabs instead of investors...

Not sure what the cost of a new memory fab would be these days, but $10B is the sort of magnitude.

[Zak33]

Soon, the warranty hit rate will smash into the manufacturers.

Gamers, even utterly devoted gamers, cant put the ram through what mining puts ram through. And the memory controller too. The heat build up, 24/7 is a thing to behold/feel

And because the Retailers will have to deal with the first slew of the warranty claims, it's going to get v v ugly I think -

[watercooled]

With the prices retailers have been charging (particularly in the US), they could almost afford to replace every one out of their own pocket and still keep a tidy profit!

Edit: I suppose if you have to find an upside to this mess, AIBs are likely to ensure effective cooling for ancillary components. I remember with the last bubble, there were a few models of cards where the fans (being stupidly+needlessly run at 100% 24/7 and expected to survive for years) were failing due to e.g. lost lubrication. I don't recall hearing similar complaints lately, so perhaps card longevity is being taken more seriously to avoid the risk of a massive influx of failed cards due to cheaping out on cooling, VRMs, fans, etc?