So, I tend to wind up picking up a lot of computer hardware, however for the past 9 months or so I haven't really had any need to purchase anything so I haven't been paying attention to pricing over the last couple of months.
With boxing day and such I figured that I would have a look at what a new machine might run me and sweet Jesus I finally got a look at the price of a kit of RAM. The last time that I picked up a 32gb kit I think I paid out about 120$ for some resonably fast stuff, now similar kits are running three times the price.
Guess that I'll be putting that hardware upgrade on hold for a while. If not indefinitely if the price of memory doesn't get back to a more normal situation in the next few months.
Looking over the price of things SSD's and GPU's are also trending up, and from what I'm hearing ti's all getting blamed on the expansion of generative AI in so many places. And while that's part of it I'm still a bit skeptical - I can't shake the thought that the companies who build out this hardware are just using that as a excuse to constrain the availability of parts and keep margins high.
I'm glad that I'm currently in a place where I don't have a pressing need to purchase a new machine, the AM4 platform that I bought into has aged very well in that regard, and I have a Macbook Pro that can handle the majority of what I do during may day-to-day. The only limitation there is the storage riding onboard, unfortunately even with a 1tb drive I'm kind of wishing the thing was upgradable. Worst case I'll have to grab a external SSD for my photos or start working with them off the NAS that I've got sitting at my desk.
