So you mean to tell me they had the technology the whole time to make upgraded modular chips and sell them for pre-existing computer architecture but chose not to because they knew people would pay for the shiny new toys.
There’s a chip crisis and SUDDENLY!!! We’re all able to use new technologies on old computer architectures…
Call it supply and demand but I think that’s fucked up nm which way you look at it.
I read that and then immediately thought to myself, so they just chose not to release upgrades for old architectures and speed released a shit load of new hardware they knew people would pay OTA for.
This whole time they could’ve actually been making old computers better than they are and make it so the consumer didn’t have to spend a fuck load on upgrades but waited till a chip shortage to do it…
I better get around to formatting my old PC and selling it. The 128gb DDR4 3600 kit in it should net me a fair bit of coin, as would the brand-new 5950x that came from a RMA. I want to pay off the debt I accumulated from building my new machine.
That would let me scrimp and save up some coin for the AI bubble popping. In the long run, I want to replace my RTX 4090 and x2 3060s with x4 RTX Pros.
Things don’t get cheaper. They might slow down how much they are increasing in price, but don’t expect equipment to somehow revert to something less than what you paid for it.
AI bubble popping would almost immediately crash the pricing. All AI earmarked hardware would be suddenly fair game, any hardware in the datacenters would be sold off, and you would see a dramatic rise in availability.
So yeah, you can absolutely see things getting cheaper.
Except most of that data center hardware is designed for only it. Think GPUs with no video output, rack mounted liquid cooling, etc. There is very little reusable.
If there’s loads of crazy GPUs sitting around for low prices i’d bet people would create adapters for home use. Even if it can only be used for AI, we’d be in the golden age of local inference.