• Bongles@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    1 hour ago

    I know it’d be expensive, but I wonder if it’d be worth it to valve to start producing ram. They’ve certainly got the money to get it started, they are getting heavy into hardware that they can use it in, and they could sell it as well.

    I don’t know if there’s a shortage of raw material or if no one wanted to invest in more manufacturing when AI could crash within a short time.

    • magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 hour ago

      Manufacturing their own sticks would onlympush the problem to the price of RAM chips.

      The resources it takes to start manufacturing modern RAM chips is such that THE ENTIRE FUCKING NATION OF CHINA is finally getting around to it.

      I know Valve is a big company, but that’s a pretty bite to chew and swallow.

    • ID10T@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      51 minutes ago

      I don’t know if there’s a shortage of raw material or if no one wanted to invest in more manufacturing when AI could crash within a short time.

      My understanding is that it’s the latter. AFAIK it takes something like 3-5 years to get a fab going if you already know what you’re doing, so it would not only be wildly expensive but you’re also gambling that RAM won’t come back down to a reasonable supply/demand in the next 5-10 years to break even on the whole process.

      There’s also the fact that it wouldn’t really make sense for Valve unless they wanted to make a huge pivot in their whole business. Entry costs aside, manufacturing RAM is not really something a company can just do as a “side gig”. Valve is only like 400 people, so it wouldn’t be Valve just “starting to produce RAM” but rather Valve turning itself into a RAM manufacturer that also distributes video games.