r/pcmasterrace • u/Bobert25467 • Mar 27 '26

News/Article Google's new AI algorithm might lower RAM prices

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https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/03/google-says-new-turboquant-compression-can-lower-ai-memory-usage-without-sacrificing-quality/

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453

u/LimpStudy1079 Mar 27 '26 edited Mar 27 '26

i think this will just result in AI improving, but the ram will stay the same, unless this new model doesn't bottleneck under heavy load.

146

u/oan124 Mar 27 '26

if the invention of the cotton gin is anything to go by, ram prices might actually go up even more because of that

20

u/[deleted] Mar 27 '26

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1

u/rohithkumarsp Mar 29 '26

Huh... Always known this in my daily life but didn't know there was a name, it's almost like if you just widen the road and add new lane. The traffic won't reduce. (for a while it will but) It will just increase as there's more people going the same route.

26

u/lemonylol Desktop Mar 27 '26

If manufacturers haven't been increasing supply whatsoever to address the shortage, sure.

30

u/LimpStudy1079 Mar 27 '26

increasing supply of the shortage they created?

13

u/TransBrandi Mar 27 '26

They created the shortage not be restricting their manufacturing ability, but by removing it from consumer-facing goods and pointing it at AI-company facing goods. It's not like they shutdown a factory that's just sitting there doing nothing. They would have to retool and start making consumer-grade gear again.

12

u/lemonylol Desktop Mar 27 '26

Have you been following this at all or are you just attempting to find the most doomerist possible scenario?

3

u/LimpStudy1079 Mar 27 '26

just saying what happened

6

u/fluffyluv Mar 27 '26

Do you really expect the average person to understand macroeconomics? Haha

7

u/PlagiT Mar 27 '26

They aren't addressing the shortage, because it's not profitable for them to sell consumer grade ram anymore

9

u/PseudoY Mar 27 '26

it's not profitable for them to sell consumer grade ram anymore

Just to nitpick: Yes it is. It very much is now, in fact. Otherwise, the Chinese competition wouldn't be encroaching on the vacuum left behind.

It's just more profitable to do AI stuff.

3

u/Goddemmitt Mar 27 '26

This is exactly it. Once they start losing the big commercial dollars, they'll focus on the consumer again. This MIGHT be a step in the right direction, but it sure doesn't actually solve anything.

OpenAI needs to die.

1

u/lemonylol Desktop Mar 27 '26

Or more money to sell both.

4

u/NatashaStark208 Mar 27 '26

It takes years to be able to increase supply

3

u/lemonylol Desktop Mar 27 '26

This shock has only been around for 6 months

1

u/BaconIsntThatGood PC Master Race Mar 27 '26

I'm sure they would love to increase supply. It's a capacity issue. It's not that they're not increasing supply they don't have the infrastructure to increase supply and increasing the production capacity isn't a simple thing.

1

u/Spare_Competition i7-9750H | GTX 1660 Ti (mobile) | 32GB DDR4-2666 | 1.5TB NVMe Mar 27 '26

The problem is increasing supply will take tons of money and time. And in a couple years the memory prices will likely fall, meaning they'll struggle to recoup the costs. So it's likely that the manufacturers will just try to wait this out.

1

u/TF2fanatic102 Mar 28 '26

Drastically increasing supply to meet a temporary demand is a very bad idea. If demand increases naturally, so should production, but what we're seeing with RAM prices is an artificial (and very dramatic) spike in demand.

1

u/elsjaako Specs/Imgur Here Mar 28 '26

Assuming that the RAM previously provided some value to the AI companies, that same stick of RAM now provides 6 times the value. It's more valuable, and so they might be willing to pay more. Until you get point where they have enough RAM, but I don't think we're there yet.

0

u/oO0Kat0Oo Mar 27 '26

They'll use the extra space for spyware and bloatware to run constantly in the background and somehow you'll have more RAM but your computer will be slower than before.