Motherboard sales are now collapsing amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI : technology

[-] eestileib 334 points 3 weeks ago

AI is an amazing tool for fascists.

Annihilate private access to computing, censor and rewrite all comms, destroy free software and the last remnants of education...

Every single decision made for evil.

And all these vendors who are locking themselves into one customer are about to learn why that's a bad idea.

[-] cadekat@pawb.social 41 points 3 weeks ago

I'm not here to argue for or against LLMs in general, but self-hostable AI is a thing. Actually open AI is a thing.

A blanket statement saying about AI as a whole technology being good for fascism is about as useful as saying "roads are good for fascism" (they're great for troop movement after all).

[-] roofuskit@lemmy.world 108 points 3 weeks ago

You can't self host anything when the hardware is no longer affordable.

[-] ugjka@lemmy.ugjka.net 12 points 3 weeks ago

Self hosting an llm ain't the same thing as self hosting nextcloud for your docs and calendar. Yes there are small models but their output is laughable

[-] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 30 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Small models are improving and becoming more capable. The quality of local LLMs is basically unbounded. The context size of local LLMs is bounded by hardware. So local LLMs can be very capable for small, self-contained tasks.

qwen 3.6 35b running locally:

Write a Python script that can pull weather data from public sources and provide the high and low temperature for the current day in Miami, FL.

Single shot. No tool/internet use, so it didn't pull this script from elsewhere.

import requests

def get_miami_weather():
    # Miami, FL coordinates
    LATITUDE = 25.7617
    LONGITUDE = -80.1918

    # Open-Meteo API URL (free, no API key required)
    url = (
        f"https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast?"
        f"latitude={LATITUDE}&longitude={LONGITUDE}"
        f"&daily=temperature_2m_max,temperature_2m_min"
        f"&timezone=auto"
    )

    try:
        response = requests.get(url, timeout=10)
        response.raise_for_status()  # Raises error for 4xx/5xx HTTP status codes
        data = response.json()

        # Index 0 corresponds to the current day
        high_c = data["daily"]["temperature_2m_max"][0]
        low_c = data["daily"]["temperature_2m_min"][0]

        # Convert to Fahrenheit (commonly used in the US)
        high_f = (high_c * 9/5) + 32
        low_f = (low_c * 9/5) + 32

        print("🌤️  Miami, FL Weather for Today:")
        print(f"High: {high_f:.1f}°F ({high_c:.1f}°C)")
        print(f"Low:  {low_f:.1f}°F ({low_c:.1f}°C)")

    except requests.exceptions.HTTPError as http_err:
        print(f"❌ HTTP error occurred: {http_err}")
    except requests.exceptions.ConnectionError:
        print("❌ Error: Could not connect to the weather API.")
    except requests.exceptions.Timeout:
        print("❌ Error: Request timed out.")
    except requests.exceptions.RequestException as err:
        print(f"❌ An error occurred: {err}")
    except KeyError as key_err:
        print(f"❌ Error parsing data: Missing expected key {key_err}")
    except Exception as err:
        print(f"❌ Unexpected error: {err}")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    get_miami_weather()

Output:

% python3 ./m_weather.py
🌤️  Miami, FL Weather for Today:
High: 88.0°F (31.1°C)
Low:  73.2°F (22.9°C)

I tried to keep the size and scope within something that would reasonably fit in a comment. Looks pretty decent to me, but I can't write Python myself. Never learned. I double-checked the LAT & LON of Miami, and it's spot on.

It did take 47 seconds, while a cloud LLM would probably take 5 or less.

All I'm saying is local LLM isn't garbage and it is getting better all the time.

[-] rimu@piefed.social 7 points 3 weeks ago

That's interesting.

How much ram did it use while running?

If you used a GPU, how much does it cost in today's prices?

[-] MagicShel@lemmy.zip 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It's a MacBook Pro. 36GB of ram. I am sure Macs have some kind of gpu and I understand it somehow combines GPU ram with system ram, but I don't really know Mac hardware very well.

It's beefy for a laptop, but the desktop I built for myself several years ago had 32 GB of ram and a GTX 1660, so I'm guessing they are similar in capability. I gave that to my daughter, so I can't run a comparison right now.

EDIT: After doing just a bit of research, I've learned the unified memory architecture that Macs use, while not ideal for many purposes, is actually a big advantage for running larger inference models. So it's possible that this particular model wouldn't run at all on my Linux box or would run much slower because the full model wouldn't fit in the 6GB of VRAM and create a lot of memory thrashing.

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[-] Jhex@lemmy.world 45 points 3 weeks ago

if you did not understand the comment from above it's fine but splitting hairs like you are doing is silly (everybody knows it's not 100 % of AI is 100% evil)...

your comment is exactly the same as when people say "guns don't kill people, people kill people"... yes, we all know guns are not autonomously killing people, the point is that guns, as a tool, are remarkably good at doing something we do not want, which is to kill people

[-] meco03211@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

Not to go on a separate tangent, but that's the entire point of guns. They are supposed to kill. That's not meant to be some crazy conservative defense of them or opposition to regulating them. Just pointing out something that seems to get lost in conversations.

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[-] brendansimms@lemmy.world 23 points 3 weeks ago

Corps want to privatize roads and make them all toll roads too

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[-] eestileib 14 points 3 weeks ago

Roads were also useful for random citizens and people who happened to be in the area.

LLMs are overwhelmingly more useful to bad actors.

[-] IratePirate@feddit.org 11 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I've looked into self-hosted AI and decided it's not worth the cost - both in terms of hardware and energy - when compared to the relative value to be gotten out of it. YMMV.

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[-] Ilixtze@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 weeks ago

The US government is already setting down the legal framework to make self hostable AI ilegal so good luck with that. Also self hostable AI is still being trained on stolen material so still fascist.

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[-] verbalins@sh.itjust.works 19 points 3 weeks ago

This article talks exactly about that: https://tante.cc/2026/04/21/ai-as-a-fascist-artifact/

[-] artyom@piefed.social 7 points 3 weeks ago

I don't know if spending unfathomable amounts of money buying up the entire global supply of computing products can be considered a "tool".

[-] MrKoyun@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago

How are they about to learn why that's a bad idea? Like, when the bubble pops?

[-] bytepursuits@programming.dev 6 points 3 weeks ago

I think. Most likely they going to be outcompeted by china.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-27/why-china-s-deepseek-qwen-and-moonshot-are-a-worry-for-us-ai-rivals

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[-] Asafum@lemmy.world 47 points 3 weeks ago

If we can't make a time machine to go backwards, can we at least pause time? The future absolutely fucking sucks, let's just avoid it altogether lol

[-] Hackworth@piefed.ca 21 points 3 weeks ago

Death to Chronos?

[-] osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org 13 points 3 weeks ago

TIME CANNOT BE STOPPED

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[-] deranger@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 weeks ago

Pausing time would be worse than living forever. I could not imagine a greater torture.

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[-] chunes@lemmy.world 43 points 3 weeks ago

How has this whole saga not been an obvious indictment of 'the free market?'

Big players shouldn't be allowed to gobble up all the resources needed by small ones. How is it not obvious that they need to wait until production increases to meet their needs before embarking on their little project?

[-] ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 39 points 3 weeks ago

No this is exactly what the free market is. Regulations that make things fairer for small people is communism.

[-] kiranraine@reddthat.com 13 points 3 weeks ago

Then give me communism bc this free market shiz aint it. Giving us the scraps that AI doesn't want is just nuts if we get anything at all. Esp since no one beyond billionaires want this ai crap

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[-] Venator@lemmy.nz 27 points 3 weeks ago

The free market means the market is free to fuck you. Yes you in particular 😅

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[-] shirro@aussie.zone 41 points 3 weeks ago

Who knew cartels were bad for markets? I am sure economists and regulators were screaming at legislators for years but I guess they couldn't hear them over the sound of the bags of dirty lobbyist money landing on their desks.

And then there are the financial "irregularities" funding the AI boom which are also not getting any attention.

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[-] commander@lemmy.world 36 points 3 weeks ago

I keep thinking maybe things will good by 2030 and remember that's 4 years away. Game devs please target the Steam Deck and Switch 2 as the baseline. Mid range and high end is just too premium for most people. Even entry level enthusiast gaming hardware is too expensive because of memory and storage. Steam Deck and Switch 2 are good low power draw integrated graphics level. That's not terrible for pricing

[-] ericwdhs@discuss.online 23 points 3 weeks ago

Even having high-end enthusiast hardware, I want those devices as the baseline too. Whatever optimizations they do still apply over the whole hardware spectrum.

Also, you can technically say 2030 is less than 4 years away if you want to traumatize old people. Lol.

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I like watching sci-fi made in the 80s and 90s where they thought that 2015 was a really advanced distant prospect.

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[-] chilicheeselies@lemmy.world 33 points 3 weeks ago

The wet dream for big tech has been to get people to pay subscription fees for compute, just like businesses do for cloud hosting. They tried with Stadia to get people to play games hosted in the cloud, but that was never going to fly.

With the compute demands of AI (which is comparable to a AAA game except for the largest models), they dont want to make the same mistake and let you have the compute. They see this as an oppurtunity for subscription fees for the earth.

The fact that we cant get hardware for a reasonable price is an added bonus to this plan.

All of this only works of everyone subscribes to this shit. Businesses will, because its just easier to manage it. Consumers though should not give in. If you want to run an agent, use a small local model.

The best thing that can be done is to make local open source agents and models approachable for regular users. Right now, they arent.

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[-] DigDoug@lemmy.world 32 points 3 weeks ago

Motherboards were already way too goddamn expensive, anyway.

About a year ago I was considering upgrading my AM4 PC to AM5. The rock-bottom cheapest motherboards were only slightly cheaper than the relatively high-end one I got 5-ish years ago. I decided to stick with my current PC.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 19 points 3 weeks ago

There's going to be a lot of us running 2019-vintage PCs indefinitely.

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[-] hkspowers@lemmy.today 28 points 3 weeks ago

Good! Motherboard prices have been wildly out of control for a while now. Asus selling 1k motherboards when that same tier of motherboard used to top out at 400 bucks max. Let these greedy fucks have their lunch.

[-] TassieTosser@aussie.zone 7 points 3 weeks ago

Don't forget gutting the connectivity on lower end motherboards. Apparently PS/2 ports and LED error lights are premium features now.

[-] chaospatterns@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago

Do people still use PS/2 ports?

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[+] GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world 21 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

[deleted]

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 weeks ago

Sure, you may be able to buy a cheaper motherboard for a while. But you'll pay through the nose to populate it, hence the falling motherboard sales.

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[-] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 21 points 3 weeks ago

Dammit. Everything is going up in fire GPU prices. . Ram prices. Storage. Then cpu. And now motherboards. So basically everything...!

[-] tal@lemmy.today 12 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Motherboards are, if anything, probably going to do the opposite

motherboard prices aren't rising because of increased demand. Memory prices rose because of increased demand. Prices for things that use memory also rose. Motherboard sales are falling because of decreased demand; motherboards don't use a ton of memory, and fewer people need a new motherboard because the components that they'd plug into the motherboard cost enough to cause them to defer upgrading or buying a new PC. You might see price cuts, if anything.

[-] fonix232@fedia.io 8 points 3 weeks ago

It's actually the other way around, prices should go down as mobo sales are low.

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[-] echodot@feddit.uk 8 points 3 weeks ago

So now is the perfect time to buy a case.

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[-] febra@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago

I have a home server waiting around for an SSD for a year now. I have the money, but I don't like feeling like I'm getting scammed. So I'd rather wait for this market to collapse than give them my money.

[-] vogi@piefed.social 13 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

right before mother's day as well! smh.

[-] artyom@piefed.social 13 points 3 weeks ago

I'm very happy I built a PC between the crypto mining craze and COVID and AI scam...

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[-] msage@programming.dev 11 points 3 weeks ago

Can we create a fund with gamers, and then buy the manufacturers that go under?

We need just one of each, MB, PS, GPU, hopefully something for CPU will be buyable as well.

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[-] M0oP0o@mander.xyz 8 points 3 weeks ago

Oh boy, if its not the consequences of their own actions.

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