this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
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Technology

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[–] mlg@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I bought one of these 64GB packs for less than $50 not even a year ago

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

TIL I have about $8000 in ram sitting in a drawer.

I don't know how to feel about this...

[–] epicthundercat@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

But why did my millenial heart immediately think of Dance Dance Revolution???

[–] termaxima@slrpnk.net 23 points 1 day ago (3 children)

My take : Prices got you down ? Keep the hardware you already have ! No one else can upgrade anyway, games requirements aren't going up anytime soon.

Obviously that doesn't cover you if you don't already have a machine, in which case I would go DDR3.

But for those who do, does anyone upgrade anymore ? I'm on 2019 hardware and everything runs perfectly good. Oftentimes great !

Also using 2019 hardware! I dread the day something dies, though. Luckily I upgraded to 32gb of RAM the last time it was super cheap. I'm hoping this machine has another ten years in it.

[–] Yeller_king@reddthat.com 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I bought a new video card right after Trump won. But yeah now I'm ready to use my current hardware for a good long while.

[–] REDACTED@infosec.pub 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I love how "After Trump won" is a legit basepoint when everything went to shit, even if unrelated (AI was going to happen regardless of politics)

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[–] HiTekRedNek@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I bought an 8G ECC RDIMM DDR4 the other day for 15 bucks cash.

Guy around my age who "bought the wrong kind" for his laptop, and forgot about it until it was too late to return it.

I'm gonna hold onto it a little longer, then see if I can't make 30 or 40 bucks off it. 🤣

I think passing it along for the price you got it at to someone who will be stoked to use it will be more rewarding than making such a small profit

[–] morto@piefed.social 145 points 2 days ago (2 children)

some people (...) are asking “can you game on DDR3“? The answer is a shocking yes.

"shocking". Really?

Browsing the internet as a third worlder always give me these eye-rolling moments. Sigh...

[–] tordenflesk@lemmy.world 54 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Everything's shocking, under-rated and or being blasted these days.

[–] rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works 28 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You really slammed em with that one

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[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 179 points 2 days ago (22 children)

"Can't compete with the global super rich? Lower your standards and be happy!"

[–] Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.com 51 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Just because they've trained you to believe you need the latest 2nm chips (which is conveniently their highest margin product) doesn't mean you really need them.

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 27 points 2 days ago (4 children)

So personal computers of year 1999 gave their users that feeling of magic that can still be felt from media of that time, and state-of-the-art chips were being produced in fabs located not only on Taiwan, but USA, Israel, elsewhere.

Personal computers of today don't give any feeling of magic to most their users, you have to look for it.

Yet considering a standard still above what you realistically need is somehow lowering your standards.

In year 2006 they'd say about computers how many books you can fit into this or that volume of memory, or which calculations you can perform, sometimes, to give you perspective. They don't do that now, because then you'd be depressed how many resources you are using for something more vulgar than porn.

It's just sad.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

For most people, computers became powerful enough around the year 2005. A machine from late in the Windows XP era could run 3D games, CAD software, edit video, communicate with the entire world through broadband internet. What abilities have PCs taken on since? So much processing power filled up by doing the same tasks less efficiently for no reason.

[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Well CAD software has made leaps and bounds since then. Anyone who used CAD back in the day would know what an unstable clusterfuck it was and how much longer it took than now.

A lot of software has gotten much better, including "core" Foss like Linux and FFMPEG. There is just 10x as much software that is horrible, and windows has gotten so much worse to the point that it feels like computers have made no progress when you use it.

Also, CPUs nowadays use about the same power as they did 20 years ago but with an order of magnitude more processing power, and the idle power consumption is much much much lower. The first Core 2 Duo had a 65W TDP, the same as modern Ryzen 5. GPUs are just out of hand with power consumption because of profit-driven game companies and AI.

I will assert that, again, for most people, instead of computers remaining at the same TDP but increasing vastly in processing power, they would have been fine with the same processing power at vastly decreased TDP. Look at how long people held onto Win 7, and how long they held onto Win XP before that. Because they were fine, possibly better than the new offering, especially since you already owned it. Some time around 2012, anyone who wasn't a power user ran out of reasons to get excited for new computers.

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[–] BanMe@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

I retire PCs at the college I work at. They get stacked in the basement waiting on an inventory/recycling procedure that will never happen because we're a satellite campus and the basement is the tomb of technology. Went down there the other day to bring a retired PC up to replace a very old lab PC that died. The HD had been removed by a colleague - fine, that's procedure - and then I realized all the RAM had been stripped out. Dozens and dozens of PCs with nary a stick. "If you're selling that RAM, I want in on it" I told him. He laughed nervously and said no, but wouldn't say where it all was.

I am not kidding, I want halfsies...

[–] Alchalide@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bought my am5 pc late 2023, bought extra storage and a new phone last summer. I don't need anything right now but I can't wait for this bubble to pop.

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[–] Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 97 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Ddr3 was kind of the point where the technology stopped incrementing with large jumps.

Not saying ddr3 is as good as ddr4 or 5 but I used ddr3 until 2021 with no issue.

[–] THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world 34 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Same but 2024. I missed all of DDR4. Jumped straight from 3 to 5.

[–] prettybunnys@piefed.social 26 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I’ve noticed my ram speed much less than the amount of ram for quite some time.

SSDs were game changers.

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[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 31 points 2 days ago (19 children)

Im still on ddr3 and an amd fx. I can play every game except Alan wake 2.

I dont play most aaa slop though.

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[–] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 66 points 2 days ago (18 children)

The biggest problem with DDR3 is that the last (consumer) boards/CPUs that could use it are really, REALLY old. 5th-gen Intel or AM3 AMD. Which means you're looking at a full decade old, at the newest. These boards also probably can't do more than 32GB.

Now, I suppose if you only need 32GB RAM and a CPU that's pathetic by modern standards, then this is a viable path. But that's going to be a very small group of people.

[–] humanamerican@lemmy.zip 44 points 2 days ago (14 children)

I think this is actually most people. Power users and hardcore gamers are a relatively small portion of the PC market.

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[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Found 16GB DDR4 from and old swap the other day. I’m protecting that stuff like it’s an investment now. But seriously, def hanging on to it just in case anything dies.

On the look out for storage deals now. But I’m not hopeful.

[–] Lfrith@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

I jumped on some large external HDD deals before storage took a jump. I don't want to move to subscription cloud services like the billionaires want to happen.

Wish I had gotten a m.2 2230 drive too for my Deck so I missed out on that.

[–] RalfWausE@feddit.org 7 points 2 days ago (8 children)

I write this post from a Core2Quad machine with 8 GB of DDR2 RAM and a spinning harddisk... and the system feels quiet fast and nimble.

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[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Here I was thinking they were recommending a game that ran well with low RAM or something. Like WTF is Dead Dead Redemption 3?

[–] Sturgist@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Nooooooo nonononoooooo....Dance Dance Revolution 3 👍

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[–] Eh_I@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

Feels like it, but my gut feeling is "no" due to missing commas and no space before the em dash. Just a poorly written article.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 points 1 day ago

Sure, you can do that. You might as well be gaming on a Steam Deck though, because that's the level of CPU you'd be limited to.

Which is fine, I've got a Legion Go S, it works fine as long as you're aware of the limitations.

But if I want the AAA big screen shiz, I'm loading up something on my PS5.

[–] wjrii@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago

I hadn't actually looked up any numbers on the RAM shortage. Less than a year ago I got 2 8GB sticks of no-name PC3200 DDR4 for less than $25. I didn't even really need it for my use-case, but it was so cheap that "why not" felt like a perfectly viable reason to upgrade to 32GB total. Six years ago I got the original two-pack of 8GB sticks for $75. Now that same amount of old-ass DDR4 would be $90-$100. Jeezus. No upgrades for me for a while.

[–] obinice@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

DDR3 isn't still what everyone's using anyway?

Huh, I guess it has been a few years since I looked in to RAM...

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