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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.
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 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.
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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.
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***
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!
i have a memory doubler. it actually expands your memory to 4 gigs per process no matter how much memory you have. unfortunately it does grind the machine to a halt. this product can be found here
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
...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.
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.
It's sad that people need to reserve tons of memory for the OPERATING SYSTEM itself and not just the programs that run on top of it.
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....
Chinese countries
So, who would that be? China and . . . China?
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
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.
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?
So, who would that be? China and . . . China?
You forgot China as well.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
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.
Too bad he never really did say that
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
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
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?
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.
China probably curbed the dumping of chips as a result of WTO pressure. The consumer price index has not yet detected much inflation in the US. However the recent unusual trend of deflation has stopped so that may seem like around 1-2% inflation over the last few months. this can't account for a $15 rise on a 256M chip.
China's influence in the market can. Recently there is a big internatonal trade row over their price gouging suppored by fiddling with tariffs, tax breaks and their dollar pledged currency values. WTO says it costs jobs... We see low cost chips... China is probably taking the middle ground and dumping a bit less than normal to appear better.
I'd bet low cost chips (and other things) make jobs here for us in the west for at least the guys that sell em. At the very least it make us able to afford more stuff. So where is this problem at that the WTO is all nasty over? Or are they just trying to be "important" and prove a need for themselves again.
Supply & Demand at work for you! Act now before the politicians mess it up!
[Really long blockquote deleted, just read the article, every line is a hoot]
[Ok, one blockquote]
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
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.
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.
Burma!
Sorry, I panicked.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
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
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.
You have obviously never run any Java applications. Here's how to use up the first 128 MB:
}So, who would that be? China and . . . China?
Well... there's the "People's Republic of China", and the "Republic of China", two completely different countries (well, in the eyes of the PROC, the ROC is a breakaway republic, sort of like how Saddam viewed Kuwait). So, "Chinese countries" would be technically correct--and that's the best kind of correct!
Also, the ROC (aka Taiwan) is the source of much of the world's RAM, so the original poster's comment has some validity.
M-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
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.
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!)
Last time I looked Crucial was cheaper than Kingston, and is a MUCH better product! (Buy direct from their website via a link from the Gentoo website and they will make a donation to Gentoo Linux, or at least they were doing that last time I bought some dram from them).
Also you don't save much dropping in speed from PC2700 to PC2100, unless you are looking for the drams over 512mb.