Folks.

@Lydie Wait, DDR*3*??? 4 I kind of expected a bit since a lot of stuff that can run it is still pretty darn close to modern, but 3???

@nazokiyoubinbou @Lydie My hunch is that at a good chunk of this DRAM price increase isn’t actually caused by so much being bought up for ML accelerators but by speculators acting on the announcement and subsequent initial price increases and buying up even more stock on the assumption that they can flog it at a profit.
A bit like the component shortages continuing well after the initial covid lockdowns because all the buyers wanted a stockpile instead of just-in-time.

@pmdj @Lydie Well, you're right on the first part for certain. That much is pretty much established fact. It isn't for ML. OpenAI didn't actually reserve the silicon, they just pretended they were going to to cause the market chaos.

I guess you're right about the other part then really. It probably is due to those wishing to profit from this just buying up anything to do with RAM that can be bought...

@nazokiyoubinbou Yup, DDR3. I guess you can stick a 5090 in a Bulldozer rig....wonder what FPS you'd get

@Lydie No clue, but you will absolutely be CPU limited in many many ways if you do that...

One of those ways is the interface to/from the 5090 itself will simply be insufficient to utilize it well.

I guess some ML stuff might be ok-ish if you could fully offload to the 5090 to avoid being CPU bound as much as possible.

@nazokiyoubinbou @pmdj Methinks there is a solid supply/demand issue here. However, OpenAI is in danger. The end might not be too far off. But who knows!

@Lydie @pmdj OpenAI never actually delivered on that anyway. They actually reserved nothing. It was just a big trick to throw the market into chaos.

(Which begs the question of why that is actually even legal. They implied they would make a reservation, but then didn't...)

Unfortunately, even if they go down, until the bubble itself pops the chaos might just remain. If it does calm down it may take a while.

@nazokiyoubinbou Oh yeah, absolutely CPU limited. That said, I think it might work pretty well though. Maybe a RX9060 would do well.

@nazokiyoubinbou @pmdj It was an LOI. LOI doesn't really mean anything, and is not legally binding.

@Lydie Anything modern you stick in there is going to be massively CPU limited for practically everything. Even ML stuff still needs CPU guidance for significant portions. So even fully offloaded it's going to be greatly limited... (That said, even 24GiB of VRAM only goes so far...)

@nazokiyoubinbou Quake 3 gonna make a comeback!

@Lydie @pmdj Yep.

Which really really begs the question of why it isn't legally binding or anything. It allows, for example, to do this.

@Lydie Unreal Tournament 2004 all the way!!! Still the best and it runs on a rotten potato.

@nazokiyoubinbou @pmdj Unless it's a signed document, it's not legal. I could write an LOI to you right now, indicating that I will send you $5000 next month, but it wouldn't stand in court.

@nazokiyoubinbou I love that game too. I played both UT99 and Q3 the other day for a few hours.

@Lydie @pmdj That's my point. If it can manipulate markets, it should have meaning in court...

I'm not saying it should be absolutely binding, but it sure as heck should have more legal meaning than "haha, psyche!"

@nazokiyoubinbou @pmdj At least it should be considered market manipulation. That could be hard to prove though.

@Lydie I still say UT2004 was the absolute best of all the bunch. Especially instagib mode, lol. But there's one thing most people missed in UT2004: try playing the vehicle capture the flag mode in UT2004 some time. It's sad it never got the attention and work it truly deserved to really flesh it out because it's darned fun despite its limitations.

@Lydie @pmdj Often it would indeed be hard to prove.

Definitely not this time...