After memory and SSD prices surged due to the AI boom, power supplies and CPU cooling solutions now appear to be next in line for price increases, per the latest news from China.
Are there notable constraints for ‘just making more’ of these items?
Like I know short term shortages are possible for everything, but what components of a PSU or Cooler are difficult to source or manufacture? Combined with consumer versions of these not typically having a lot of direct overlap with their datacenter counterparts, do we really think this is going to be a major issue?
This increase is due to the cost of copper and tin shooting up. Copper is up 45% over the past year. Coolers are basically nothing but copper. Copper is hitting record highs due to much larger economic pressures too large for a Lemmy comment. So like if you want to find untapped copper vein and start a mining company then yeah you can lower the price but that’s about the only way right now.
The reason given is rising raw materials costs, i.e. metals, and the price increases they’re talking about are on the order of around 10% which is obviously a slap in the face along with everything else that’s going on in the hardware world, but by the same token pretty minimal compared to said selfsame everything else.
I think I paid $40 for my CPU cooler. So, if I ever need to buy a another one for some reason and now it’s $44, well, I guess I’ll live.
Are there notable constraints for ‘just making more’ of these items?
Like I know short term shortages are possible for everything, but what components of a PSU or Cooler are difficult to source or manufacture? Combined with consumer versions of these not typically having a lot of direct overlap with their datacenter counterparts, do we really think this is going to be a major issue?
This increase is due to the cost of copper and tin shooting up. Copper is up 45% over the past year. Coolers are basically nothing but copper. Copper is hitting record highs due to much larger economic pressures too large for a Lemmy comment. So like if you want to find untapped copper vein and start a mining company then yeah you can lower the price but that’s about the only way right now.
Most coolers are aluminium actually.
Heatsink fins are aluminum. Heatpipes are usually copper. I’m sure we’ll start seeing even less copper and more aluminum.
I looked around a bit more after this site wouldn’t load and it seems like you are ahead of me, you hit the real reason.
Raw material costs seems to be the primary problem.
It says in the article.
The reason given is rising raw materials costs, i.e. metals, and the price increases they’re talking about are on the order of around 10% which is obviously a slap in the face along with everything else that’s going on in the hardware world, but by the same token pretty minimal compared to said selfsame everything else.
I think I paid $40 for my CPU cooler. So, if I ever need to buy a another one for some reason and now it’s $44, well, I guess I’ll live.