I miss the days when most people had a vanilla looking computer. You wouldn't have felt out of place at the LAN party lugging in your dad's old Packard Bell tower that you used for your gaming rig.
We still appreciated visually stunning PCs. Not just for the works of art that they were, but also for the DIY skill and ethic you were actually required to demonstrate to build and mod them.
Nowadays, it's all just "RGB by default". By my angry old man standards, it looks gauche. Then again, I suppose it's the new vanilla?
We should call the fake stick "NAM" for "no access memory." Then you can tell your kids that they couldn't possibly understand, man, because they weren't _there_.
It's not looking good, I don't think supply is catching with demand yet.
Though the other day I learned there are many technologies for "RAM", and most of them are garbage for LLMs but still useful for other things, like microcontrollers. So I'm thinking my next "build" is going to be a guitar.
Can't wait for people to buy two of these sets, take the real RAM sticks and refund the two fake ones in one package. There's no way the seller is going to manually check every returned stick.
This article is using "fake" for click-bait purposes, implying some kind of scam, in fact it's just a filler RGB stick to make pretty lights inside your case, nothing nefarious about it and it's clear when you buy, but probably wouldn't be featured on HN without it.
This article seems a bit dramatic in it's title? People have purchased "blank" RAM for years for the aesthetic of it. I do not personally see the point, but I also don't have motherboards with unpopulated RAM slots. If a company wants to sell a kit that is 50/50, I am not sure that is actually a problem.
I don't see the point though even for a gaming setup, as the fake modules will still reduce airflow.
Also, gaming boards usually have 4 slots (in 2 banks). I would fill at least 2, so I'd rather have a matched kit of 2 modules, and 2 separate fillers, if I did use them.
It is quite common to leave 2 memory slots empty (of RAM) because many boards can't drive the memory at top speed if you use all 4 slots.
This seems to happen sometimes with Big Box tools, brand new out of the box: the two battery toolset will have cells from different lots (presumably:) one known to work, the other questionable... you did still get two batteries for those tools, but it sure does seem like the same one is always charging.
Had a similar experience at AliExpress (US site). Purchased M.2 drive but what I got was stick of chewing gum (not literally but you get the idea). Never bought anything from them again.
A few months ago I upgraded a Windows laptop I use in my 3d printer studio from 32gb to 64gb. I let the memory I pulled out sit on the desk, and just got around to selling it last week. I sold it on eBay for twice what the 64gb kit cost new. In almost 30 years of upgrading all sorts of machines, I can't remember if I've ever performed an upgrade and turned a profit out of it.
I'm confused, could someone help me clarify: is this just one stick of RAM, and one stick of absolutely nothing, purely for aesthetics? I can't even see inside my CPU, why would I care if there's an empty slot? Why would I pay for a piece of plastic to fill that slot that doesn't do anything?
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We still appreciated visually stunning PCs. Not just for the works of art that they were, but also for the DIY skill and ethic you were actually required to demonstrate to build and mod them.
Nowadays, it's all just "RGB by default". By my angry old man standards, it looks gauche. Then again, I suppose it's the new vanilla?
https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/
It's not looking good, I don't think supply is catching with demand yet.
Though the other day I learned there are many technologies for "RAM", and most of them are garbage for LLMs but still useful for other things, like microcontrollers. So I'm thinking my next "build" is going to be a guitar.
I don't see the point though even for a gaming setup, as the fake modules will still reduce airflow.
Also, gaming boards usually have 4 slots (in 2 banks). I would fill at least 2, so I'd rather have a matched kit of 2 modules, and 2 separate fillers, if I did use them.
It is quite common to leave 2 memory slots empty (of RAM) because many boards can't drive the memory at top speed if you use all 4 slots.
Isn't 2x8gb faster than 1x16gb since it will run in dual channel?
And shouldn't smaller capacity sticks be cheaper since they can use lower density chips?
I've had this happen both from Amazon and HD/L.
From the read, it seems like… A scam?
> While they light up and synchronize with your existing RGB ecosystem,
RAM has lights ?
wow I've been living in a cave
For example, dust can short out electrical connections. Can enough dust get into an open RAM slot to cause problems?