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by johndough 9 days ago
> GPUs become obsolete in 5 years

The GPUs are far from worthless after 5 years. E.g. the A100 80GB PCIe version cost around $15k when it was introduced in 2021 and now sells for $10k used.

Things might be slightly worse for the data center servers, but I am sure they will find find buyers.
3 comments
mywittyname 9 days ago
How much of that is due to inflated RAM prices though? I wouldn't assume the current trend is going to continue.
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hnfong 9 days ago
It really depends on how you view the future demand for compute, which really is the crux of the question of whether the capex is rational or not...
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Noaidi 9 days ago
They only reason that they are retaining value is there was not so much demand for GPUs in 2021 as there is today. Once the demand drops you will find then in dumpsters across our barren, burning dystopia.
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heaney-555 8 days ago
Why are you assuming the demand will drop?
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Noaidi 8 days ago
Because AI has a negative ROI for the user.
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heaney-555 5 days ago
Why are you assuming that AI has a negative ROI for the user? And that it always will?
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flyinglizard 9 days ago
They hold value as there is insane demand. The same reason a consumer RTX4090 costs more today than bew in 2021. Once the tide drops enough for hardware lead times to shorten to weeks, they will go the way of other used DC hardware - written off after 5 years.
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johndough 9 days ago
> Once the tide drops enough for hardware lead times to shorten to weeks

Which will not be any time soon according to SK Hynix CEO:

> We still forecast that customer demand will remain higher than our supply capacity even beyond 2030

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/sk-hynix-ceo-sees...

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Imustaskforhelp 9 days ago
For what its worth, SK Hynix CEO has every incentive to show that RAM prices will remain high for as long as possible because that is the only thing which is floating their evaluation to such astronomical amounts.

Independent estimates sort of show around 2027-28 from what I remember.

I remember reading some article which said that RAM prices are already going down from its peak slowly (IIRC I can be wrong, I usually am but 3-5% month from its absolute peak) but the current RAM prices are still astronomical given past rates but the RAM prices will slow down hopefully sooner rather than later.

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flyinglizard 9 days ago
No one knows. There's a known bullwhip effect in supply chain [0], and DRAM makers are pretty far out along the supply chain. Just like it ramped up wildly it will stop even faster.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullwhip_effect

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