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PC Prices to Rise?

Posted by michael on from the death-taxes-and-the-price-of-ram dept.

guinan writes "The Economist is running a story about how now that PC makers think the worst is over, it's high time to raise prices. In particular, the focus is on the steady price of flat-panels and a possible end to the decline we've seen in the price of memory. Granted, most of the /. crowd build their own boxes, but if you want to buy a computer from a major brand better go for one soon while you can still get all the perks."

6 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. um, ya right. by AA0 · · Score: 3, Informative

    "possible end to the decline we've seen in the price of memory."

    What is this person smoking? Memory price is almost triple what it used to be.

  2. Couldn't give a rat's patooey... by samdu · · Score: 1, Informative
    ...about the price of flat panels. CRTs are fine for now. I've yet to see a flat panel display that can equal or rival a CRT. Not to say that it won't happen, it just ain't here yet.

    -Sam

  3. Prices Are Up by Dak+RIT · · Score: 2, Informative
    Apple announced it was increasing its prices on the iMac $100 each in March, and ended a promotion on its LCDs. Since then IBM, Dell, Sony, Compaq and Gateway (that I know of, probably others too) have announced they're rising prices 10% to 30%.

    Memory has already doubled to tripled in price, and LCDs are up 25%.

    The time for bargains was over a month ago, if you buy today or wait 2 weeks not much is going to change.

  4. Building your own by BrookHarty · · Score: 4, Informative

    I always build my own, stopping by Pricewatch to find the best prices.

    But everywhere I look, places are building custom PCs now. BestBuy was even building pcs to order. They had many vendors, Alienware, hp, compaq, etc.... You could order a custom PC, or build your own with off the shelf items. CompUSA started to carry OEM products awhile back, funny to see those white boxed oem products on sale at a retail store.

  5. ram prices by kidlinux · · Score: 5, Informative

    "and a possible end to the decline we've seen in the price of memory."

    A possible end?
    The ram I'm using in my system, which I bought late August/early Septemer, has nearly tripled in price since then! At the time I bought it, I thought it was a reasonable price, but now it's just way too expensive.
    Keep in mind that memory prices have a great deal to do with supply and demand (or so they say.) Here's a price FAQ I found at crucial.com when wondering why my ram had become so expensvie.

    --
    -kidlinux.
  6. Re:Why? by um...+Lucas · · Score: 4, Informative

    Because there was a huge glut of it on the market. Memory manufacturers had increased capacity immensly during the boom times. Then the slump happened, and they were left with a huge amount of excess inventory and capacity. The only real way for them to alleviate that was to basically dump it into the market at whatever price people would pay... Since there was sooo much, the price was extremely low. Now that inventory and production are nearing demand levels, the price is rising back up again...