Posted by
emmett
on from the do-you-suffer-from-long-term-memory-loss dept.
CitizenC writes: "ACK! According to this C|Net story, RAM prices are expected to go up again this week, due to the low supply and high demand. Buy your RAM now!"
I'm not convinced that these RAM price fluctuations are for real. Remember when that plastic factory in Korea burned down a few years back? It was immediately reported that RAM prices would skyrocket, because this was just 1 of 2 factories in the world that made this particular type of plastic for RAM.
Then, about a month later, some interesting articles appeared. Just a few. (This was pre-web-journalism, for the most part, so I can't find anything to link to.) The reports were that the amount of plastic that was in warehouses was unbelievable. There was enough for years of RAM, more than enough time to rebuild the factory and replenish the stocks. Further, this other factory in the world was fully capable of producing enough plastic to satisfy the world's demand. (If anybody has a more accurate recollection of this than I, please correct my errors.)
Yet, still, the industry continued to insist that the price would go up, which it did. Smacked of price-fixing to me, like oil from the mid-east.
It's kinda sneaky everytime something like this happens. When Coca-Cola demand goes up, the price doesn't increase. When carpet demand goes up, the price doesn't increase. Yet somehow we're to believe that the RAM industry is so grossly incompetent as to be unable to adequate predict the demand for their sole product more than a month in advance?
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it seems weird to me.
-Waldo
High SDRAM prices are bad for Rambus
by
Guppy
·
· Score: 5
On the surface, it sounds like a SDRAM price hike would be good for RDRAM, as it would close (slightly) the price gap between the two sorts of memory. In reality, though, this is bad for Rambus. There are plenty of other issues with Rambus (die size, yield, packaging, royalties, etc...), but the biggest one in simple economics.
A year or two ago, the big carrot that Rambus had to offer to manufacturers was a potentially profitable product. SDRAM prices were in the dumps, so nobody was making any money no matter how much they could churn out. Fast forward to present day, and just about every fab is guaranteed a nice fat profit, just for producing a commodity chip. The only way to justify the risk and cost of switching production from SDRAM to RDRAM is if RDRAM fetches a huge margin. Hence low supplies and sky-high prices for Rambus.
Intel has been pushing manufacturers to "voluntarily" cut their margins and drop prices on RDRAM. For once, though, it seems the memory makers have the upper hand, and there have been no takers so far.
High demand fueled by these rumors
by
gklyber
·
· Score: 5
Of course, with articles like this, everyone will go out and buy RAM. There may be high demand right now, but these rumors will make demand skyrocket and make the prices even higher. Somebody at C|Net must want their memory stock to improve in value.
Re:High demand fueled by these rumors
by
Betcour
·
· Score: 4
Out of the last 5 RAM price hike, the IT press has successfully predicted 47 of them.
The semiconductor industry is about to be slashdotted!
$0.10 more a stick? Try $0.10 more a chip.
by
Marcus+Aanerud
·
· Score: 4
I think the article is confusing "MB" and "Mb". Megabytes is what we typically measure our computer storage in. Megabits is what chip vendors measure the individual chips by. 8 Megabits = 1 Megabyte. What's that mean? If the price of a 64Mb chip is $6, you need 16 of those chips to make a 256MB DIMM, and 8 of them to make a 64MB DIMM. That's $96 for the actual RAM chips on a 256MB DIMM, and $48 for the chips that go on a 64MB DIMM. That sounds a lot more realistic.
So, if there's a price hike from $6 to $6.10, the cost of the 256MB module is now $97.60. Up $1.60. Not too big of a deal until you consider markups, profit margins, and hype-stories like the one on c|net. If people see that story, they're bound to believe it, and rest assured, the good resellers are going to be reading articles that concern them (like this one).
And, of course, you need to add to the price of the RAM chips assembly of the actual DIMM, the circuit board that the chips are put on, testing of the board, distribution, further markups in retail, and so on. All together, that maks a 256MB module about $200-$270, depending where you buy.
May I suggest the RAM price index:
by
Wakko+Warner
·
· Score: 4
Go here to see if prices really do go up. This page tracks and graphs the prices of CPU, SDRAM, and RDRAM and has done so for a couple of years now. Very interesting site.
- A.P. --
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
-- "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Your standard 64MB Chip costs $6.00 from Micron. That price is going up about 10 cents. The consumer purchases a 64MB chip for about $126.00. (Based on Simple 64MB EDO 168-pin DIMM)
Now, $6.00 goes into $126.00 21 times. Take $.10 and multiply it by 21, and you get $2.10.
So in a worst-case scenario (being the company charges you DOUBLE the increase in price) the price of a 64MB DIMM from Simple Technology goes from $126.00 to $130.20. I'd hardly call that skyrocketing. Even if you pay QUADRUPLE the price increase, it's still under $10 more.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
--
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.:P)
Nothing makes prices skyrocket like panic buying
by
redelm
·
· Score: 5
C'mon/. , you're playing right into the hands of the DRAM mfrs. They don't like the current low prices and have lost a bundle on Rambus. So they're taking this low-profit time to do some maintenance/retooling on some fabs. Perfectly normal.
They've also got lots of chips in inventories to meet sales. A plant fire when demand is tight is one thing, but a planned shutdown when demand is slack is quite another.
But starting a buying panic is very much in their interest. CNet bought the story, hook-line&sinker. Now you. Fortunately, the hobbyist market is fairly small, and I doubt can move prices. The big OEMs (Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM) are smarter than to fall for this.
Re:Obligatory prediction poll
by
swinge
·
· Score: 4
Addicted slashdotters complain...
9. carefully constructed parody of slashdot appears and gets moderated up, ostensibly making fun of slashdot but clearly mired in it, simultaneously complaining about yet adding to the noise.
slashdot would be better if we ditched all the emotion. Emotion is stuff that does not matter.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not convinced that these RAM price fluctuations are for real. Remember when that plastic factory in Korea burned down a few years back? It was immediately reported that RAM prices would skyrocket, because this was just 1 of 2 factories in the world that made this particular type of plastic for RAM.
Then, about a month later, some interesting articles appeared. Just a few. (This was pre-web-journalism, for the most part, so I can't find anything to link to.) The reports were that the amount of plastic that was in warehouses was unbelievable. There was enough for years of RAM, more than enough time to rebuild the factory and replenish the stocks. Further, this other factory in the world was fully capable of producing enough plastic to satisfy the world's demand. (If anybody has a more accurate recollection of this than I, please correct my errors.)
Yet, still, the industry continued to insist that the price would go up, which it did. Smacked of price-fixing to me, like oil from the mid-east.
It's kinda sneaky everytime something like this happens. When Coca-Cola demand goes up, the price doesn't increase. When carpet demand goes up, the price doesn't increase. Yet somehow we're to believe that the RAM industry is so grossly incompetent as to be unable to adequate predict the demand for their sole product more than a month in advance?
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but it seems weird to me.
-Waldo
On the surface, it sounds like a SDRAM price hike would be good for RDRAM, as it would close (slightly) the price gap between the two sorts of memory. In reality, though, this is bad for Rambus. There are plenty of other issues with Rambus (die size, yield, packaging, royalties, etc...), but the biggest one in simple economics.
A year or two ago, the big carrot that Rambus had to offer to manufacturers was a potentially profitable product. SDRAM prices were in the dumps, so nobody was making any money no matter how much they could churn out. Fast forward to present day, and just about every fab is guaranteed a nice fat profit, just for producing a commodity chip. The only way to justify the risk and cost of switching production from SDRAM to RDRAM is if RDRAM fetches a huge margin. Hence low supplies and sky-high prices for Rambus.
Intel has been pushing manufacturers to "voluntarily" cut their margins and drop prices on RDRAM. For once, though, it seems the memory makers have the upper hand, and there have been no takers so far.
Of course, with articles like this, everyone will go out and buy RAM. There may be high demand right now, but these rumors will make demand skyrocket and make the prices even higher.
Somebody at C|Net must want their memory stock to improve in value.
The semiconductor industry is about to be slashdotted!
I think the article is confusing "MB" and "Mb". Megabytes is what we typically measure our computer storage in. Megabits is what chip vendors measure the individual chips by. 8 Megabits = 1 Megabyte. What's that mean? If the price of a 64Mb chip is $6, you need 16 of those chips to make a 256MB DIMM, and 8 of them to make a 64MB DIMM. That's $96 for the actual RAM chips on a 256MB DIMM, and $48 for the chips that go on a 64MB DIMM. That sounds a lot more realistic.
So, if there's a price hike from $6 to $6.10, the cost of the 256MB module is now $97.60. Up $1.60. Not too big of a deal until you consider markups, profit margins, and hype-stories like the one on c|net. If people see that story, they're bound to believe it, and rest assured, the good resellers are going to be reading articles that concern them (like this one).
And, of course, you need to add to the price of the RAM chips assembly of the actual DIMM, the circuit board that the chips are put on, testing of the board, distribution, further markups in retail, and so on. All together, that maks a 256MB module about $200-$270, depending where you buy.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Your standard 64MB Chip costs $6.00 from Micron. That price is going up about 10 cents. The consumer purchases a 64MB chip for about $126.00. (Based on Simple 64MB EDO 168-pin DIMM)
Now, $6.00 goes into $126.00 21 times. Take $.10 and multiply it by 21, and you get $2.10.
So in a worst-case scenario (being the company charges you DOUBLE the increase in price) the price of a 64MB DIMM from Simple Technology goes from $126.00 to $130.20. I'd hardly call that skyrocketing. Even if you pay QUADRUPLE the price increase, it's still under $10 more.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
C'mon
They've also got lots of chips in inventories to meet sales. A plant fire when demand is tight is one thing, but a planned shutdown when demand is slack is quite another.
But starting a buying panic is very much in their interest. CNet bought the story, hook-line&sinker. Now you. Fortunately, the hobbyist market is fairly small, and I doubt can move prices. The big OEMs (Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM) are smarter than to fall for this.
9. carefully constructed parody of slashdot appears and gets moderated up, ostensibly making fun of slashdot but clearly mired in it, simultaneously complaining about yet adding to the noise.
slashdot would be better if we ditched all the emotion. Emotion is stuff that does not matter.