The RAMpocalypse affects every corner of computing, but one sector hit particularly hard has been the single-board computing (SBC) space. Systems like Raspberry Pis are particularly vulnerable to fluctuations in the price of their components, which is why Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton said the company blog this week will announce a series of price increases in the company’s line of single-board computers.
The thing is, these increases represent the third RAM-related price increase for the Raspberry Pi product line. less than six monthsso you can understand why there are enthusiasts hurts. For example, the top-of-the-line 16GB Raspberry Pi cost $120 when it was introduced last January; as of yesterday, its price is $299. (It’s also worth noting that even the original price raised eyebrows: Tom’s Hardware, for example, noted on its website. review And The Register “The $120 price tag makes this a considered buy for all but the most die-hard fans.” he complained model “(pushed)… past the $100 barrier.”) Originally priced at $60, the 4GB model is now expensive 110 dollarsthe 8GB model, which was originally $80, is now getting more expensive 175 dollars.
These prices may not seem particularly bad, but the main point of these small machines was their affordability. Raspberry Pi, in particular, describes its mission as “putting high-performance, low-cost, general-purpose computing platforms into the hands of hobbyists and engineers around the world.” The original Raspberry Pi, launched in 2012, was priced at $35, and if the company has been making news since then, it’s generally on the low end, not the high end. Just over a decade ago, for example, Upton wrote very different blog post: all about the launch of the Raspberry Pi Zero, which sells for $5. (In case you’re wondering, it had 512MB of RAM.)
To be fair, Raspberry Pi still sells for $5 a board, and has kept the price of its low-end systems fairly stable—the entry-level Raspberry Pi 5 with 1GB of RAM remains $45. But the cost of more capable systems has increased dramatically, with increases directly related to how much RAM is installed on said system. It’s no coincidence, of course: In a blog post, Upton says the price of the fourth-generation low-power double data rate (LPDDR4) RAM used in the company’s systems has increased “sevenfold” over the past year. (It’s annoying that the study he cites is paid, but given what we know about RAM prices in general, there’s no reason not to believe it.)
Raspberry Pi is probably the best-known manufacturer of SBC hardware, and so the company takes most of the heat here, but it’s a sector-wide problem. Commenting on the price hikes yesterday, industry commentator Jeff Geeling he wrote“LPDDR chips now account for the majority of board costs from vendors I’ve checked.” Many such vendors are reassessing the marketability of SBC hardware: “(Nevertheless) Raspberry Pi has a developing microcontroller ecosystem and industrial base… I’m afraid that smaller vendors won’t be able to keep going like this forever.”
Ultimately, this is bad news for everyone. As Geeling notes, “Cheaper parts are easier to learn, you don’t have to worry too much when you break them.” And he’s right – if your bad solder cooks your Raspberry Pi, you’ll feel worse if you drop $100 on it rather than $30 or $40. Similarly, for schools in developing countries, it is very easy and indeed certain developed countries who would rather spend their money on bombs than education – if they can do so in systems that cost very little to teach computer science.
What happens from here? Well, given that AI companies’ hunger for RAM is only matched by their hunger for work that isn’t theirs, it’s hard to see things getting better until the AI bubble finally bursts. Good days.
