Why does this sort of thing never happen to me? Redditor says they found $10,000 worth of RAM just sitting in their garage

Found 10k worth of ram sitting in my garage

As the spawn of two IT professionals, my childhood home is still steeped in a whole lot of old hardware. It's amazing what my folks have lying around—but I very much doubt they've got a horde of RAM they've just neglected to tell me about.

One Redditor recently revealed they have roughly $10,000 AUD (about $7,200 USD) worth of RAM squirrelled away in their garage. The stash appears to contain multiple 64GB DDR4 sticks. The poster said in a follow-up comment that this small fortune came from "an old work server that they let me keep." Some hardware professionals get all the luck.

PC gamers should be no strangers to how much memory servers can gobble up, with at least some of the blame for our present memory crisis moment resting on the shoulders of AI data centres. Worse still, not all server memory will be compatible with your rig; modern desktop PCs tend to use UDIMMs, whereas servers use RDIMMs—Corsair breaks down the differences here.

Basically, if the AI bubble bursts tomorrow, leaving lots of server memory floating around in its wake, that wouldn't automatically be great news for your gaming rig.

Today, if you happen to stumble upon a windfall of server memory yourself, leveraging runaway memory pricing to your advantage and selling the stash is the most practical option. The Redditor who shared their stash hasn't yet said what they plan to do with it—though folks in the comments are already asking if they could be sold a stick or two. I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures, such as commenting on a Reddit thread.