DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market

Today Raspberry Pi announced more price increases for all Pis with LPDDR4 RAM, alongside a 'right-sized' 3GB RAM Pi 4 for $83.75.

The price increases bring the 16GB Pi 5 up to $299.99.

Despite today's date, this is not a joke.

I published a video going over the state of the hobbyist 'high end SBC' market (4/8/16 GB models in the current generation), which I'll embed below:

But if you'd like the tl;dr:

Unless the DRAM pricing situation changes radically, I think the hobbyist SBC market is dying—or at least on life support. And I don't just mean Raspberry Pis, but all SBC vendors. LPDDR chips now account for the majority of board cost from the vendors I've checked with.

Besides causing a radical reduction in new boards launched (Radxa seems to be the only vendor that had some cadence last year), the price increases for boards with greater than 4 GB of RAM have put those boards out of the reach of most hobbyists.

Even mini PCs, which for a time were a great deal, have risen to $250+ for 8 GB models. Used PC are also more expensive, especially with more than 4 GB of RAM.

I design most of my projects so they can be replicated for less than $100. Learning is easier on cheaper parts you won't fret over too much when you break them. With prices going up, this limits the types of projects I take on.

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