AI-driven chip shortage could mean your next smartphone or laptop will have less RAM

[Shawn Knight]

Facepalm: Next year's batch of flagship smartphones could ship with less memory than devices currently on sale. Worse yet, you may be asked to pay just as much – if not more – for a phone with less RAM than the one you're using now, and it's all thanks to AI.

The ongoing global memory shortage has been well documented. The response from most manufacturers thus far has been to simply raise prices but what do you do when that becomes untenable? According to South Korean tech leaker Lanzuk, the next step may involve dialing back memory capacity.

The leaker believes we're not far from a reality in which production of smartphones with 12GB of memory dips significantly and lower-end handsets with 4GB of RAM scale up to fill the void. High-end models with 16B of memory could become scarce, and variants that do stick around are almost certainly going to get a price bump.

It's not just smartphones that could see memory specs adjusted to help deal with the shortage. Although TrendForce notes that while entry-level laptops with 8GB of RAM will be difficult to reduce further in the short term due to operating system limitations and processor pairing needs, shipments in the mid-range are increasingly shifting toward 8GB as the norm rather than the exception. In the high-end segment, expect to see models favor 16GB of memory instead of 32GB or even 64GB.

Memory prices have skyrocketed in response to the ongoing shortage, and the hikes have already started trickling down to consumer products.

DDR5 memory kits, for example, have been hit especially hard as of late. When I built my latest PC during the holidays in 2023, I paid under $150 for a 48GB kit of Patriot Viper Elite DDR5-6000. Today, a comparable kit will set you back closer to $450.

Given the current market, it'd probably be best to hold off on purchasing a new phone, laptop, or computer memory until supply stabilizes and prices come back down from the stratosphere.

Image credit: Remy

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AI-driven chip shortage could mean your next smartphone or laptop will have less RAM

 

[Thatsdisgusting]

When I've got 13" M4 ipad 16GB/1TB, primary for RAM since I don't need and never needed that much flash in mobile devices Ever, I thought that was THE stupidest cash drain in my life
Now I guess that was an ideal investment, wall-street level, cuz now I have another kind of gold brick

 

[trparky]

Software manufacturers have become too comfortable with the idea that we can just throw more hardware at a problem. It's the same with how bloated Windows has become. Just throw more cores at it, just throw more RAM at it. Well, those days are numbered.

You know, it's times like this when I look at Doom. By modern standards, it’s almost miraculous what it managed to achieve on such limited hardware. Its performance wasn’t the result of brute-force computing power, but of smart design, deep optimization, and an understanding of the constraints they were working within.

As hardware becomes more expensive and harder to scale, software developers need to rediscover the mindset of designing efficiently first, rather than assuming ever-increasing hardware headroom will always be available.

 

[NumberNine]

Oh no! How will I ever make a phone call or send a text with only 8GB RAM?!

 

[trparky]

Oh no! How will I ever make a phone call or send a text with only 8GB RAM?!

That just means Android will have to go on a diet and the OEMs will have to quit shoving non-removable bloatware.

I do, however, find it funny that iPhones, despite having less RAM, often outperform their Android cousins that have double the amount of RAM in them.

 

[MasterAce]

People just hold off buying stuff. And this will bring all kinds of problems.

And Nvidia can bring the 6000 series with exact same ram as the last 2 gen and blame shortages. Think they already cancelled the super refresh with 1,5gb mem chips

 

[Jack77]

As hardware becomes more expensive and harder to scale, software developers need to rediscover the mindset of designing efficiently first, rather than assuming ever-increasing hardware headroom will always be available.

Reminds me of the demo scene where they - still - do amazing audiovisual stuff with programs that are only kilobytes large in file size. In case of the f.I. the Commodore 64 these demo's also run within the 64 kilobytes of RAM shared with the OS.

 

[Achaios]

Don't think this is much of an issue for ppl who buy gaming laptops.

I mean there are ppl who casually dump $2-3k on gaming laptops. These same ppl will be able to afford the same laptops even if they cost $4K, $5K or $6K. There's plenty of whales out there.

Same for ppl that buy $2K iphones. They would still buy them if they cost $3K, $4K or even $5K.

As to the lower end of the market, ppl will have no issues paying $200, $300 more for a new laptop with 8GB memory.

 

[Rapob]

That just means Android will have to go on a diet and the OEMs will have to quit shoving non-removable bloatware.

I do, however, find it funny that iPhones, despite having less RAM, often outperform their Android cousins that have double the amount of RAM in them.

iPhones beat Android phones (gen vs gen) in most real world tests due to vastly better optimization (both OS and Apps), however Apple uses peak TSMC nodes for maximum performance SOCs as well.

Android is a fragmented mess compared to iOS. Apps on Android are meant to work on thousands of different specs, which is why there is so many bugs - That rarely gets fixed - and overall lack of optimization.

Also, App developers often prioritize iOS version because iPhone owners simply buy more apps in the store - simply uses more money on average inside these apps as well - where most Android users refuse to pay a dime most of the time.

Developing apps for iOS is much easier, meaning less time used for both coding and support afterwards and with more money in the end. Win/Win for developers.

When you consider the resell value of an iPhone, it does not cost much more than a high-end Android device anyway (that is worth a bag of peanuts after 2 years, due to little to no demand). For comparison you can sell a several year old iPhone for many hundred dollars/euro unless abused/damaged maybe (still parts will sell) - demand is huge.

Android flagships often tries to fix the lacking performance by adding even higher hardware specs, like alot of RAM, so this RAM shortage can turn out especially bad for Android flagships.

However It will affect entire market. Servers, desktops, laptops, phones, tablets, consoles and more.

Would not be surprised if we see next gen consoles carry less RAM than anticipated for example. Steam delayed Steam Machine due to DRAM/SSD prices. Nvidia delayed/cancelled 5000 SUPER refresh. AMD increased prices on their GPUs officially, even more on the higher VRAM models. More price increases coming soon.

The good thing about this, is that maybe application and game developers will now optimize their games better. Maybe AI can help. Haha.

 

[JaredTheDragon]

So you just don't buy a new phone. Simple as that, problem solved.