Comment by snuxoll
There's not a difference between "consumer" DRAM and "enterprise" DRAM at the silicon level, they're cut from the same wafers at the end of the day.
There's not a difference between "consumer" DRAM and "enterprise" DRAM at the silicon level, they're cut from the same wafers at the end of the day.
Conceptually, you can think of it as "RAID for memory".
A consumer DDR5 module has two 32-bit-wide buses, which are both for example implemented using 4 chips which each handle 8 bits operating in parallel - just like RAID 0.
An enterprise DDR5 module has a 40-bit-wide bus implemented using 5 chips. The memory controller uses those 8 additional bits to store the parity calculated over the 32 regular bits - so just like RAID 4 (or RAID 5, I haven't dug into the details too deeply). The whole magic happens inside the controller, the DRAM chip itself isn't even aware of it.
Given the way the industry works (some companies do DRAM chip production, it is sold as a commodity, and others buy a bunch of chips to turn them into RAM modules) the factory producing the chips does not even know if the chips they have just produced will be turned into ECC or non-ECC. The prices rise and fall as one because it is functionally a single market.
At the silicon level, it is the same.
Each memory DIMM/stick is made up of multiple DRAM chip. ECC DIMMs have an extra chip for storing the error correcting parity data.
The bottleneck is with the chips and not the DIMMs. Chip fabs are expensive and time consuming, while making PCBs and placing components down onto them is much easier to get into.
Does it matter that AI hardware has such a shorter shelf life/faster upgrade cycle? Meaning we may see the ram chips resold/thrown back into the used market quicker than before?
I mean, the only difference we care about is how much of it is actual RAM vs HBM (to be used on GPUs) and how much it costs. We want it to be cheap. So yes, there's a difference if we're competing with enterprise customers for supply.
I don't really understand why every little thing needs to be spelled out. It doesn't matter. We're not getting the RAM at an affordable price anymore.
Doesn't the same factory produce enterprise (i.e. ECC) and consumer (non-ECC) DRAM?
If there is high demand for the former due to AI, they can increase production to generate higher profits. This cuts the production capacity of consumer DRAM, and lead to higher prices in that segment too. Simple supply & demand at work.