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A DIMM Future for RAM Bundles
VeggiePossum23 writes "PC WORLD has an article about rising concerns that computer manufacturers will be cutting the amount of bundled RAM they sell with their PCs owing to rising prices of dynamic memory. The article claims that spot pricing shows a rise of almost $15.00 for 256MB modules of DDR DRAM in some markets. According to a Reuters article on ZDNet, the price rises are caused by shortage of memory chips, and this is causing the prices of memory to raise at the fastest rate in four years. Even Intel is said to be worried at the overall trend of price hikes for all types of memory. The Inquirer has a similiar article from a couple of weeks ago which includes a chart showing how the third-party memory manufacturers are doing. Kingston tops the chart for revenue."
glad I just upgraded. Even if it increases 15.00 dollars its still so much cheaper than it used to be.
I don't need that much RAM. 640K is all I'll ever need. Uncle Bill said so!
I have 1 million monkeys on a million year contract to make me a better sig.
Longhorn is slated for like 2006, so the need for all that extra RAM is a few years away. I'm just happy I got my gig of RAM a few months ago.
You mean Chinese countries have stopped dumping cheap RAM into the national market? Or is it the booming economy causing inflation?
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
why would any one need more than 512 mb ram any way????????????????game devlps shd stick to some limit instead of asking for more, for every new release
Why does yahoo do this
Let's not hope this means the reintroduction of "MemoryDoubler" products. Or SpeedHalfers, as they are sometimes called...
Let's see... it's a false silicon shortage created for the purpose of invading... um... no, wait: Bush's Saudi oil-family buddies are artificially driving production down, resulting in a... er, wait, how about this one: it's a Pentagon ploy to reduce civilian computing power and prevent blogs from getting the truth out about the phony oil war.
That'll do. Another Slashdot truth is created.
IMHO the reduction won't affect serious computer users except in terms of the cost. If it costs me $50 more to get the 1GB of DDR RAM, well, I'll probably pay it.
Where it will hurt people is the technologically illiterate, who simply take the default Dell configuration or whatever and then wonder why their systems are always low on RAM.
Join the Empire! http://www.empirereborn.net/
A lot of the shortage has to do with the fact that companies are not starting to split their resources between DDR and DDR2. Between that, and the fact that it seems like companies may buy lots of replacement computers this year (2001 was the last strong year for purchasing, and 3-year replacement cycles are typical).
So yea, be prepared to pay higher prices for gas, milk (and associated dairy products like ice cream), meat, RAM and who knows what else this year.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
You mean that they are again artificially forcing up the price of RAM?
RAM prices are like oil prices, they have nothing to do with supply and demand but instead, are controlled by some secret or not so secret cartel.
And I thought it always pays to buy something( electronic) later rather than now.
;-) Maybe its bcos the memory manufactures use linux machines and have bought SCO licenses
U sure its not a large scale conscpiracy to increase the PC sales
Ewe shouldn't make baad ram jokes, they make others feel sheepish.
Ok how come the toaster manufacturers and automobile manufacturers don't seem to have this supply and demand problem? I chose these two because one seems pretty simple to make and the other exponentially more difficult and yet I can buy either without having to worry about significant increases in pricing each week. I just don't get it.
Then again I didn't read the article either
***I GOT NUTHIN***
It was dirt cheap to begin with, all the prices went down for years.
Personally I don't really see it happening, raising the prices like that.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Regular ol' SDRAM is getting pretty damn pricey too. We've had to stop stocking it. It's become a "special order", as it's too expensive to keep any amount of inventory for it for any length of time.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
Foo
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Somebody who doesnt apologize for using a pun. Why the hell do people do that ?
.... really)
So that no one misses the pun. (No pun intended
With a sharp stick and some oily rags.
...that epoxy factory in Japan burned to the ground in the mid-late 90s?
/ek
I remember all the talking heads saying RAM prices would be exhorbinate for YEARS to come.
Supply problems are short-lived, really.
about a big fire/explosion/typhoon or some kinda shit at one of the big plants in asia where dimm chips are made, and it predicted fallout like this.
Apparently there are only a handful of factories in the world equipped to produce the chips, and only a handful of manufacturers doing so (samsung, winbond, etc.. but most are rebranded)
Supply and demand.. life moves on
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I always buy the minimum amount of memory offered when I buy a pre-built system. The OEMs want too much $/byte for pre-installed memory. The most cost effective way to get memory for a new system is to buy it from somebody like Crucial/Micron.
"He who would use a pun would pick a pocket."
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
make more ram? Wow what a brainiac move on my end. Then again, artificial inflation is more profitable. -A
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Of course Intel will be worried. If it costs a lot to put RAM in the machines, there won't be as much demand for high-end processors (read, gaming or server) to process the data in that RAM.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
I don't like MS but i respect bill he is a briliant buisnessman and he know the industry well enogh to know that software gets more demanding and memory constantly increases...
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Seriously though, it's been nice for the flash market, which is where the manufacturers are shifting capacity. Prices there have dropped nicely. If both markets continue to do well, more capacity will come online, and prices will drop again across the board until manufacturers start ramping up DDR2 capacity at the expense of DDR1 (as has happened to PC133).
Normal fluctuations in the RAM market - nothing to see here.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
Maybe Micrososft will get their programmers to code better and use less memory. Maybe Nautilus won't use up 40+mb to just open up one windows, maybe Mozilla won't chew up 70+ mb and damn if GAIM doesn't use 40+mb....
Do the products cuts have to do with allocating resources to the next generation of DDR technology? If so, then it's perfectly normal for the older tech to experience drops in production.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
are because the industry is so cut-throat. In good DRAM times, companies crowd in, adding new production capacity and trying to make a quick buck. They know this is going to kill prices a couple years down the road, but if they don't do it, they'll be left out in the cold as competitors grab their market share. Sure enough, a couple of years later oversupply kicks in. Companies manufacture less DRAM, shift production to more profitable products, etc... And the cycle begins anew. I really don't know what started it, unless it was the 1987 DRAM crash, when all but one US manufacturer dropped the DRAM business due to intense Japanese competition. (And illegal dumping, as it turned out.)
Adding to this now is a fairly major transition from 200-300mm wafers. No matter what the DRAM companies tell you, they're never as good with their process as they claim they are. (I used to work for one of them.) Everyone is struggling to some degree with 0.11 micron compared to 0.13, and everyone (except perhaps Infineon, who started with it about three years ago) is struggling with 300mm wafer technology compared to 200mm.
Add it all up, and it very likely is a legitimate shortage. No price fixing here.
This has happened from time to time over the years. I remember the prices in '94 went up pretty significantly for a few months when a memory chip fab plant in asia burned down. It's not really a big deal. Someone always steps in to fill the demand.
Capitalism is funny that way.
If there is a toaster shortage, you can build a new factory pretty rapidly. Not so with chips. With cars, demand is pretty steady and factories are rarely used to capacity. If you have a chip factory which is not used to capacity, producing an extra chip is very cheap, so it is a waste to not produce as many as you can. On the other hand, producing an extra car is rather expensive even when the factory is otherwise idle -- so idle capacity doesn't push car prices down to unsustainable levels.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Your corporation could have the highest Revenue on the planet and still be bleeding so much money that it is the worst performing corporation on the planet.
They really should teach that initially in Middle School and reinforce that every year up through High School.
Basic Accounting Skills are so lacking in this country that otherwise highly educated people can look extremely ignorant when they open up their mouth and start talking about accounting...
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Dear Evil Corporations.
More RAM, please.
Thank you.
Sincerely, The Resistance.
So that no one misses the pun.
Yeah...I'd feel like a part of me was lost, without it.
Seriouisly, though, it may not be intended, but it's a damn good groaner. Just the way my family likes em. Thanks!
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You need another gig of ram for Office Longhorn.
Last year, I bought a 256 pc2100 ddr Kingston stick, after rebate it was 3.69 cents...saw other offers for same price , but only like twice between june and december.
I also bought a 512 stick for bout 35 bucks, pc2700 ddr (the cheapo kind from a large retailer, with endless waits for my rebate....the bastards. Seems like standard operating procedure for rebates is 1) fill it out 2) photocopy all stuff 3) watch postman POSTMARK it 4) wait 8 weeks 5 ) call the dumbasses and complain....then back to step 4) wait).
This year, I see the same 256 meg sticks for a minimum of 10 bucks, and the 512's for 45 bucks
I want my cheap RAM and I want it N-O-W!!
(then again, I bought ONE meg for 250 bucks once, but that was 1985, lol)
Its funny, in a sense, because whats expensive today is just damn dirt cheap tomorrow, depending on how much of a given item is produced.
I cant wait for 512 sticks to be 10 bucks a pop on eBay.
1. Ram mfgs get together, collude to raise prices
2. Brokers sell stocks of Ram mfgs on promise of increased profits
3. Collusion breaks down as mfgs increase production to take advantage of better margins
4. Prices go even lower
Lather, rinse, repeat.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
Considering that the last time I bought RAM, I paid $1/MB, current RAM prices could quadruple, and I'd still be happy. Besides, what kind of apps do you need more than say, 256MB RAM? Hell, most machines I see these days ship with 512MB, which is more than I need.
I should think AMD should be even more worried. Their whole 64-bit computing initiative stood to gain a huge boost in the coming year as Windows 2003 finally got 64-bit support and server configuration with >4GB became mainstreamed. Now, folks might be looking at the larger memory requirements for 64-bit systems and try to stertch it a bit with a 32-bit Intel processor for a bit longer.
sigs are a waste of space
I bought 2x256 PC3200 from crucial for ~$82 a few months ago. Now 1x256 PC3200 sells on their site for 70 bucks!
1. Create a good product.
2. Slow down production, call it "increased demand" and raise the prices.
3. Profit!
That the local Best Buy now lists them as "ReAM Modules"
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
No problem. I still have the 8MB from my old 486DX66. I'll just sell it and buy another 514MB for my current machine. It must qualify as a collectible antique by now, no?
Please... RAM prices are a commodity. So what that the prices went up? Like any other commodity, once the prices go up, there is an impetus for RAM manufacturers to make more memory, thus bringing down the prices. It's exactly like the stock market.
Who the hell cares that the prices went up? They're gonna come down in a few weeks/months, so why should slashdot be reporting it???
But what corpirate type would admit that their company lost 2 million dollars last year? They much prefer to impress people by saying that they had 30 billion in revenue. As for net? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...
This "news" about top memory pricing repeats itself every halfyear for 20 years. Perhaps it's time to hit those international memory syndicates?
There you are, staring at me again.
They won't know their system is low on RAM. Windows uses a dynamic swap that will make up what you need. So all they'll have is a slow-ass system.
I've either had really bad luck in buying Kingston RAM, or Kingston's product is crap. I've built close to a dozen new systems in the last five years, and I used to be in the habit of buying the least expensive RAM that met the requirements for the architecture. That usually meant Kingston. Over a third of these systems had instability issues that I was able to directly attribute to bad RAM.
I never had a problem exchanging the bad module for a new one, and the new one always worked perfectly. But, it's always a pain in the butt isolating the bad memory module and then taking it back to the store for an exchange. For my last two systems I bought premium RAM, and plan to do so for the foreseeable future.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
As if they already didn't ship them with 256 MB, which makes them dog-slow under XP with more than two apps open. "Waste your processor buying a machine without RAM". At least, they should go back to selling pentium IIs, that would balance things out.
having a pile of RAM is really useful if you're manipulating large amounts of data in realtime, eg audio and/or video. 1 GB is much better than 512 MB.
I'm old enough to have seen the cycle through a number of times now. Price hikes in RAM always happen about 6-9 months before the price goes through the floor on the next development cycle.
Get ready for VERY cheap RAM again in 2005.
Now Bush is going to want to drill in Nevada for DRAM!?
Won't someone please think of the scorpions!
We need to break this country of it's dependence on foreign DRAM once and for all.
Life is too short to proofread.
I can get a AMD 2000+ and motherboard cheaper than I can get the 512 MB of mem to go into it. This doesn't seem right.
Zoid.com
The article claims that spot pricing shows a rise of almost $15.00 for 256MB modules of DDR DRAM in some markets
Is there a futures market for memory? If enron were around, I'm sure we could convince them to start one...
When I'm rendering one of my film projects, you better believe I'm thanking my glorious amounts of RAM.
Oh my god.
Could you be any more dramatic? I have never seen a $69.99 PC game. And upgrading every 3 years to play the latest and greatest just seems to be a symptom of oh I don't know, the insane pace of technology.
And there are games out there that don't require insane machines to run and are just as fun.
You can have either games with amazing graphics/physics that push the envelope and require hardware to run on, or you can have an older computer and run less intensive (but not less brain intensive) games.
You're not going to get both.
Oh and I guess the increasing size of textures, which have nothing to do with code should be attributed to poor coding?
if programming and programmers tried to make their code smaller, while avoiding pitfalls like 600MB installs (re q3,halflife etc.) wouldn't the games be more popular?
No.
Some developers, especially ones doing video and multimedia, can never have too much RAM. I have 1G in my work machine, and I wish I had more at times. I believe one of my friends who does professional video editing has 2G in his machine.
(S(SKK)(SKK))(S(SKK)(SKK))
Reading through Gates' Q&A with America's youth, we feel pretty good about our bet. A 14-year-old female asked him about probable career opportunities.
His answer: "There will be a wealth of opportunities relating to software."
Oops...
Be careful. Several times in the past publicity agents have placed stories like this in national magazines just before big price drops.
Everything in the magazines now is for sale. No magazine of which I am aware has any integrity.
Here's a quote from the Reuters article on ZDNet:
"We believe the tight supply situation will continue for the time being on delays by rivals in a move to shrink circuitry" to 110 nanometers, said a semiconductor trader at Samsung.
Notice the 100% conflict of interest.
After the Taiwan earthquake the rise in prices was very fleeting, due to the hype by publicity agents, and not any real lack of supply. The did the same scam concerning VCR heads, saying the lack of supply would make VCRs go up in price. Instead, the price dropped sharply.
Actually, Microsoft Flight Simulator needs 1.8 GB of free hard disk space but only 128 MB of RAM and 8 MB of VRAM.
You would think this old ram would be dirt cheap by now, but it's still priced high compaired with faster ram. It's cheaper to just buy old computers at a yard sale/auction and take the PC100/133 ram out, and throw the computer away, than it is to buy the ram from a store!
This type of news (memory prices are rising) comes up periodically. Last time, I plotted the price of memory (from pricewatch for 512MB) for months before and after the peak. From that one anecdote, it seemed to me that the news media is manipulated to release such news (or they are complicit) by the memory sellers *AFTER the peak of the price rise has already passed* and when the prices are heading lower. In the conspiracy theory mode, I'd think this is manipulation to sell more at the higher price when prices are starting to go lower.
Make your own historical plot for the past several weeks (and future weeks) and see - since I only have one data point (well, set of points, but one "period").
Example computer advertising
Before higher RAM costs
QAPMOC_PH 5500: 256 MB RAM
QAPMOC_PH 6200: 131,072 kB RAM
Best Buy Sales droid:"Yes, the new 6200 has more RAM than the 5500 model."
I know years ago on at least this one model of notebook Toshiba listed the 3 gb hardrive as "3,000,000 megabytes".
$cat
higher prices will yield more research/supply
sucks for the consumer in the short run...
http://while-true.blogspot.com/
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
Going though some old bills my dad showed me the one where he paid many hundreds of dollars to update his PDP-11 to 128K.
Actually it may have even been to 12K!
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
The basic $499 machine on www.dell.com/tv only includes 128MB, down from the usual 256MB
You have obviously never run any Java applications. Here's how to use up the first 128 MB:
}Or perhaps you'd rather print some diamond
Actually, that patent doesn't expire until 2023 or so.
If they miss the pun, thats their fault. Nobody tells someone what the punch line in a joke means.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
That would be Bob Kerrey. No relation - last name is even spelled different.
Who fucking cares what Uncle Bill says? Uncle Bill (and anyone else who brings up the whole "640K ought to be enough..." spiel) can eat my ass!!!
Given that PCI Express is coming along, is this not just a ploy to encourage users into buying old stock? NVidia seem to be clearing out their old stock
I'm sorry, your comment is very well informed but it's just funny to hear people talking about toasters like that....
:)
When one toaster factory burns down [it] doubtless has minimal impact on the worlds toaster resources.....
Plus the demand for toasters is pretty constant. People buy toasters when their old one breaks. They dont rush out to buy a 5% faster "upgraded" toaster just because it's there.
Hehe
Joseph?
That is SIMMply the lamest Slashdot headline I've seen in a while. :)
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
In most cases, it's the quantity, not speed, that matters anyway. The mantra is, keep everything in memory to minimize disk I/O since even the slowest memory is faster than the fastest disk.
If I have to choose between 512MB of Dual Channel RAM and 1GB of Single Channel for my PC, I'd pick 1GB. Choice is easy.
So now it appears that the Ram makers have turned into OPEC thus cutting the supply of ram to drive up Prices.
In other news RamPEC has assured President Bush that they will up the production of Ram modules to drop prices in time for the November election.
These prices are starting to fluctuate just like gas. If this keeps America might have to liberate some more poeple.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
Once the lower cost, existing inventory is consumed, future prices will be higher and continue to climb.
The best I best I can find for 512MB sticks is $111 and $255 for 1GB sticks.
Perhaps OEM manufacturers will put pressure on OS vendors to use resources more efficiently.
Wait. What planet did I just wake up on?
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
This is a bit late since memory prices have been trending down in the past few days. Take a look at http://www.dramexchange.com where they present pricing in a stock-chart-like format. Seems like a great way to track the pricing on something as commoditized as PC components.
oh my god, a whole $15 extra for a whole 256mb RAM, I guess I'll need a whole lot of price increases of that size before they get to the $800 I paid for 16mb once! come one, stop complaining, computers ARE CHEAP!!!
we're simply running out of silicon based alien life forms to kill.
RAM prices fluctuate at that extreme on a regular basis. My take is that manufacturers and vendors might be looking at ways to get 'added value' bucks. That is, sell the box with less than optimal RAM so that we bunnies are forced to buy more a short way down the track...and most newbie users would go through their vendor (read: Compaq, Acer, IBM etc). There's far more money to be made selling your memory modules separate to the computer.
PRC and Taiwan are the easy ones but Singapore is 76% Chinese
dont believe it on principle. anyone remember when that ram factory burned down mysteriously? If you dig around there are some reports saying that while the factory was burned, the remains of ram making equipment (ie expensive) were not found.
one thing that must be remembered about this industry is that its run by a bunch of greedy scumbags, who are generally full of shit and not to be trusted. they realized long ago they can make more money by ripping people off, than by making a good product and keeping consumer goodwill.
one of three things can be happeneing:
1 ram makers are spreading this rumour to get rid of old stock, at a higher price, lol. it is their way of having a sale.
2 ram makers may know a corporate buying trend and see a 3 year cycle renewal happening. they are gonna try and fleece corporate buyers, and not give them a cheap way out. this is kinda similar to how gateway raises its pc prices on weekends, to fleece the working stiff. pc prices also notably increace around august (student buyer = sucker) and x-mas. the good news here is if there really is a big 3 year corporate upgrade cycle, then there should be a huge wave of very cheap used pc stuff. this would allow almost anyone to make a beowulf cluster to predict future ram prices
3 ram makers are abandoning the old formats, and soon there will be none left. this is also done on purpose. sure they could mass produce 133 ram easily, and very cheaply, but if they did nobody would really want their latest dual channel crap. with ram, more is better, not faster. too bad mobos dont have better ram support, like 8 or 16 slots. dual channel an all that is same old shit. its been around for over a decade now if i remember correctly. if you dont believe that an unsupported/older/inferior format/product jumps in price, just try and buy a pci graphics card.
ram makers were seeing prices of 3500$ for 32 meg modules, and say to themselves, where did we go wrong? its time to get some of that margin back.
imho ram should not be an option. all pc's should come with 4 gigs, or whatever the current os max is. that way oem windows would find a way to use it all anyway, and you'd still be using hard disk memory, and not have to give a shit about the buying something xtra to make difference scam.
Anandtech theory:
8 3
http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.html?i=19
Late last week various reports began to hint that the US DOJ price fixing investigations against the Big 4 memory producers; Samsung, Micron, Hynix, and Infineon. The EU has launched a separate probe against the same companies with regard to the extremely unusual increase in DRAM prices that lasted between November 2001 and May 2002. As part of court documents in the now dismissed FTC case against Rambus, an email sent from a Micron employee claiming with regard to memory suppliers Samsung and Infineon states; "..if Micron makes the move, all of them will do the same and make it stick". Two months later, we began to see memory prices increase bizarrely. After the disclosure of this email (and others), the US Department of Justice has launched this new investigation on grounds of antitrust practices. Micron officials claim the email released from the FTC vs. Rambus case has nothing to do with the recent DOJ probe. So what exactly happened those fateful months in 2001/2002? At the time the incident, the composition of the memory market was slightly different than it is today: Manufacturer Market Share Samsung 30% Micron 17% Hynix 13% Infineon 12% Elpida 6% Nanya 5% Samsung was by far the largest DRAM producer in 2001, and one of the exclusive RDRAM producers as well (along with Elpida). Samsung and Hynix are headquartered in Korea, Micron in the US, and Infineon in Germany. Micron has a long history of complaining to the FTC about foreign memory manufacturers dumping memory into the US below cost in order to solidify contracts and market dominance.
...to consider buying ANY Windoze system with least then 256 meg I see this all of the time now - bakas hawking "cheap systems" with only 128 meg. Useless!
Down with memory bloat!
10 years abo I can recall paying out over $300 for 8MB memory modules. I don't think we have a problem yet....
Perhaps M$ were a little premature in saying "lets ditch the harddrive, Ram is dirt cheap so we'll use that instead"
Never mind, 640kb should be enough for anyone.
Ones with Backbone, a high level of personal ethics and morals.
We only hear about the bad apples in the news. If all corporations were run as poorly as the craptastic corporations being litigated to 'death' by the government, this nation would have popped, fizzled and feel into barbarism more then a few years ago...
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
c:\dos> memmaker
to the rescueeee
There's no doubt something is making the prices rise. But what is the whole story? Hype in a case like this is enormously profitable.
John Kerry, on the other hand, was said to have been captured and became a sex slave for the VC. He is rumored to have orally gratified over 200.
The old memory is likely not made anymore, or if it is, it is only done by a very few suppliers. However, there is still demand out there - so the "new" old stock (and any new stock) gets priced accordingly.
Until the demand drops to nothing - then the supply becomes "worthless", and we start seeing "memory key fobs"...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon