Oversupply Sends DRAM Prices To One-Year Low

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Oversupply Sends DRAM Prices To One-Year Low

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday January 4, 2011 @02:48AM from the cheap-at-twice-the-price dept.

alphadogg writes "DRAM chip prices reached a one-year low on Tuesday and approached their cheapest ever due to a post-holiday oversupply. The cheap memory chips are pushing PC prices lower too, a Taiwan-based trading platform said. Prices for commodity 1-Gbit DDR3 DRAM chips dropped to an average of $0.84 per unit from historic highs around $2.80 in April and May last year, said Ivan Lin, publicist and editor with DRAMeXchange. Prices hit a record low of $0.81 per chip in March 2009, according to the exchange's daily surveys."

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Calls for a libation by smittyoneeach · 2011-01-04 02:48 · Score: 5, Funny

Would that Scotch,
Were so cheap by the DRAM,
A shave, a shot, a gig;
Still change for the tram.
Burma Shave

--
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
1. Re:Calls for a libation by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 03:31 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Who're the fucking killjoys who moderated that Offtopic?!
  That comment is pure gold. Best FP I've seen in a while. And I've made +5 Funny first posts myself, so I believe I might just know what I'm talking about when I say that comment deserved at least +6.
  Mods, get your heads screwed on straight and grow a sense of humour.
  Posting anon because this is offtopic and I know it. Meh.
2. Re:Calls for a libation by h4rm0ny · 2011-01-04 05:23 · Score: 1, Redundant
  
  I've made +5 Funny Posts myself, and can therefore guarantee they mean bugger all.
  
  --
  
  Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
3. Re:Calls for a libation by baegucb · 2011-01-04 11:49 · Score: 1
  
  Except they are funny, and should be enjoyed, and modded as such. You comment though, deserves -1 douche.
DDR2? by Hatta · 2011-01-04 02:53 · Score: 1

Does this apply to DDR2 chips? It's almost at the point where it would be more economical to buy a new mobo and ram than it would be to add ram to a not that old board.

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
1. Re:DDR2? by alen · 2011-01-04 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  i doubt it since almost everyone is making DDR3 these days and DDR2 is only the more expensive older assembly lines
2. Re:DDR2? by rwa2 · 2011-01-04 03:22 · Score: 2
  
  Fortunately (?) a lot of DDR2-era motherboards were affected by that huge batch of bad capacitors, so it might not be a bad idea to replace your mainboard before one of them fail.
  Of course, I'd still feel compelled to pull together enough spare parts to build a machine around the old mainboard anyway... 'sigh' the many trappings of spending money on things computer-related :-/
3. Re:DDR2? by mdm-adph · 2011-01-04 03:49 · Score: 1
  
  I wish -- though it still makes sense that, if you have more than one DDR2 motherboard in operation, to replace just _one_ and then use the leftover DDR2 sticks in the other to add ram.
  
  --
  It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
4. Re:DDR2? by CynicTheHedgehog · 2011-01-04 04:13 · Score: 1
  
  I just checked and it looks like it has. I was contemplating upgrading from 4x2GB of DDR2-667 to 4x4GB, and I think the price of 16GB kits was between $400 and $500 (median) with individual 4GB sticks going for $100-$120. I see now that there are some cheaper 4GB DDR2 sticks going for around $75. Although, that's still $300 right there, which is right at what I paid for a new mobo + 16GB of DDR-1600. I don't know if prices will go any lower though ... AFAIK most places are trying to ramp down production on DDR2 so they can switch to DDR3, so as long as demand exceeds supply then prices will be higher.
  Anyway, I figure I'll be happier to have DDR3 in case one of them goes bad, so for me it was worth the extra effort for the upgrade.
5. Re:DDR2? by CAIMLAS · 2011-01-04 04:16 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Yes, that's right. DDR2 is 'over the precipice' - it's old technology at this point.
  We're kind of at a point similar to where we were in the mid-90s, where the "last generation" (high end 486) systems were just as fast/comparably fast to "this generation" (early Pentium) processors, but RAM support (and availability, utility, etc.) was more significant.
  Right now, any system 3-5 years old is likely to be 'good enough' for most peoples' tasks - all except the most demanding users. The bottleneck will be RAM. On the older systems with only 1-4GB of DDR2 support (or present), this is going to start being a problem.
  We ran into the same thing a couple years ago with DDR, and a couple years before that with PC133: smart and/or financially capable people bought as much of the stuff as they conceived they'd need to keep those systems supplied long enough to replace them outright. (In many cases, I know that DDR RAM held those systems out until quite recently.)
  In most cases, systems with DDR2 are nearing their EOL anyway. They're a bit aged, and very few have been produced OEM in the last year or so. DDR is "gone", so to speak; DDR2 will be there in a year or so, at this rate.
  DDR3 is technically superior to DDR2 in almost every way: it's lower power, runs cooler, and is markedly faster. The chipsets which interface with it are better. Forget DDR2 and move on; it's old tech. Use the systems for what they can do and don't fret it - just replace them if you need to.
  
  --
  ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
6. Re:DDR2? by CAIMLAS · 2011-01-04 04:19 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, those were DDR era motherboards, mostly (assuming you're thinking of the "bad cap" foxconn debacle around 2003). We're talking 2.4-3GHz P4 era stuff, when 1GB was still considered "a lot", before Vista came to the scene.
  I still have (and use) a 550W Antec PSU that has bad, leaked caps in it from that era. The leads test good under load still. Bad caps were/are not a death knell to the hardware. Likewise, I've got a Dell Optiplex 270 which has that problem (and an underclocked CPU) but runs stable enough that it's never gone down from instability or had app stability issues (that I'm aware of).
  
  --
  ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
7. Re:DDR2? by Corporate+Troll · 2011-01-04 04:30 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Right now, any system 3-5 years old is likely to be 'good enough' for most peoples' tasks - [...] On the older systems with only 1-4GB of DDR2 support (or present), this is going to start being a problem
  
  Aren't you contradicting yourself a bit? Those 3-5 year old computer have 1GB or 2GB RAM already and they are being sufficient. I have a laptop, bought in January 2007, so it's 4 years old. I came with 1GB RAM, it now has 2GB RAM because it was a cheap upgrade. It was a laptop on sale because it couldn't reach Vistas requirements, so back then 1GB wasn't all that hot either. So, unless you meant those "demanding users", for a normal user 1GB is enough, 2GB better.. Beyond that not so much.
  I do advocate to take the most RAM you can afford for any machine you have and I have done this since at least 2005. My wifes new iMac has 16GB RAM. Does she need it? No... But the day she thinks it's too slow, I can just say... "Sorry, it's already maxed out, I can't do anything". It gives a bit more headroom, but I've never seen it use more than 4GB (which is what it came with). I'd call it "anti-bitching-insurance". ;-)
  Same thing with my brothers new computer: got 16GB for it. It was two 8GB kits at 75€ or so... Not exactly expensive.
  Will they use it? My wife definitely not. My brother may or may not benefit from it given he plays a lot of games.
  For me? I live on what comes out of the dumpsters and buy left and right stuff to upgrade. Got a AMD Athlon 64 X2 socket 939 somewhere and 4 sticks of 1GB DDR RAM. Bought myself a motherboard that supported that, and whammo, for the price of a new motherboard I got myself a machine that's more than enough for anything I throw at it.
8. Re:DDR2? by devjoe · 2011-01-04 04:33 · Score: 2
  
  Yes, this is exactly the issue - 1Gbit ram chips make 1GB ram sticks, and most people are beyond the point of adding more 1GB sticks. The only use for these now is in the two or three 1GB sticks that manufacturers put in new low-end systems. The article is very deceptive since the prices of bigger ram chips/sticks have not fallen by anywhere near as much, though they have fallen.
9. Re:DDR2? by Carnivorous+Vulgaris · 2011-01-04 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  Most DDR2-era motherboards have solid-state tantalum capacitors.
10. Re:DDR2? by Nadaka · 2011-01-04 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  Where is this oversupply of DDR3? Only available online? Go to an electronics store and you see racks full of DDR2 and empty racks for DDR3?
11. Re:DDR2? by yuhong · 2011-01-04 04:52 · Score: 1
  
  Except that you can use both sides to fit 16 of them, which would result in 2GB sticks
12. Re:DDR2? by hedwards · 2011-01-04 04:54 · Score: 0
  
  Aren't you contradicting yourself a bit? Those 3-5 year old computer have 1GB or 2GB RAM already and they are being sufficient. I have a laptop, bought in January 2007, so it's 4 years old. I came with 1GB RAM, it now has 2GB RAM because it was a cheap upgrade. It was a laptop on sale because it couldn't reach Vistas requirements, so back then 1GB wasn't all that hot either. So, unless you meant those "demanding users", for a normal user 1GB is enough, 2GB better.. Beyond that not so much.
  Which requirements? I was running the Vista RC with a computer from 2004, with only a half gig of RAM and it worked fine. Of course a lot of it didn't work, but mostly because MS was stupid enough to require Aero for things. Other than that, it actually ran faster than XP did for most things.
13. Re:DDR2? by jittles · 2011-01-04 05:04 · Score: 1
  
  You're asking for trouble. When those caps finally do give up the ghost they could potentially fry anything attached to the power supply!
14. Re:DDR2? by smooth+wombat · 2011-01-04 05:15 · Score: 1
  
  the many trappings of spending money on things computer-related :-/
  
  Consider those trappings a tax on the stupid.
  
  --
  We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
15. Re:DDR2? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 05:34 · Score: 0
  
  Welcome to 2011. Online shopping has been happening for a while now ;)
  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231417&Tpk=N82E16820231417
  Wait until 3pm today and this will be a Newegg shell shocker for $75.
  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231424&Tpk=N82E16820231424
16. Re:DDR2? by rwa2 · 2011-01-04 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe some of the nicer ones... but some of the bad caps have still been lingering around.
  I still lost an AM2+ ECS motherboard to a blown cap a couple of years ago, and that's when I unexpectedly upgraded to a DDR3-capable AM3 motherboard.
  Of course, there were extenuating circumstances... we had just left out of the country for two weeks, and a summertime power & A/C outage was probably a factor. Also ended up making my UPS battery explode (though I didn't notice it until I removed the battery about a year later and found the casing cracked and acid all over the place :P )
  Anyway, awesome how you can run a home server for months / years at a time without incident, until you leave for two weeks. :P
17. Re:DDR2? by Amouth · 2011-01-04 06:22 · Score: 2
  
  1 Gbit != 1 GB
  8*1Gbit = 1 GB
  last i checked normal form factor could fit 16 chips so 2GB stick... after that you have to go to higher density.
  last i checked 2GB on a stick was still a decent amount.
  
  --
  '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
18. Re:DDR2? by Mashiki · 2011-01-04 06:40 · Score: 1
  
  You really don't have anyone but yourself to blame for buying the cheapest motherboard on the market. ECS boards regularly fail on the capacitor front. The difference in price between a cheap ECS board and a 'nice' gigabyte or msi board is about $8.
  
  --
  Om, nomnomnom...
19. Re:DDR2? by rwa2 · 2011-01-04 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  Heh, yeah I ended up with a Gigabyte board.
  Maybe now, but back in 2007 when the AM2+ platform was still new the ECS board had pretty good reviews (performance within 2% of other boards with the same chipset that cost $30-$40 more).
  Anyway, that ~$60 I spent on the cheap-ass board managed to hold me over for a few years until DDR3 came out and became cheap enough to save me a little money on an eventual RAM upgrade :P
  I ordered a replacement cap a while ago, hoping I could repair the board so I could build a system for my son, but alas, my old soldering irons don't get hot enough for motherboard desoldering work :/ Not going to throw any more money at it's, he'll have to make do with crappy old laptops :P
20. Re:DDR2? by Corporate+Troll · 2011-01-04 08:15 · Score: 1
  
  It was on sale... It was marked Vista-Ready and came with Windows XP MCE. This was before everyone knew that Vista would be a dud. Since it came with XP, it had to go as it was considered obsolete. It was one of those laptops with "Vista Capable" stickers, by the way. Which meant no aero, which meant to the end-user "Wait, I don't get the full Vista". My 2007 laptop has run Linux since the beginning and never made a problem. I'm typing on it right now, thank you very much.
  Apart from that, I ran Vista on a 4GB RAM machine and it was awful. Felt slower than my P-IV 2.6GHz/2GB RAM on XP SP2 back then. I really don't believe your Vista machine with 0.5GB RAM worked fine at all, given that XP SP3 is just barely usable as a office computer with 0.5GB RAM.
21. Re:DDR2? by petermgreen · 2011-01-04 08:33 · Score: 1
  
  It's almost at the point where it would be more economical to buy a new mobo and ram than it would be to add ram to a not that old board.
  I found this statement rather surprising so I decided to check it out using newegg prices (rounded to the nearest dollar).
  DDR2 1GB: $13 2GB: $29 4GB: $70
  DDR3 1GB: $13 2GB: $22 4GB: $43
  AM3 boards with DDR3 seems to start at $40 while LGA775 boards with DDR3 seem to start at $45 . Of course those are bottom end boards, if you want niceities like more expansion slots or more ram slots then expect to pay quite a bit more than that.
  So it seems what you say is true if all of the following hold
  1: you can't use the existing ram as part of your upgraded configuration
  2: you are upgrading to at least 8GB.
  3: you are prepared to use a bottom of the barrel motherboard
  4: you consider your time to swap the motherboard to be of zero value.
  5: you already own a suitable processor (that is you are either running LGA775 or are running an AM3 processor in an AM2/2+ board)
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
22. Re:DDR2? by CAIMLAS · 2011-01-04 09:13 · Score: 1
  
  It's an 8-year-old system with old crap attached. Anything important is NFS mounted. I'm not too concerned.
  
  --
  ~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
23. Re:DDR2? by petermgreen · 2011-01-04 10:30 · Score: 1
  
  Interestingly 2GB and 4GB sticks of DDR3 seem to be almost exactly the same cost per gigabyte at the moment. This would suggest to me that the chips are also about the same price prt gigabit (yes it's conventional to measure chips in gigabits and sticks in gigabytes, I think this dates to the days when an 8 bit stick would be built out of 1 bit chips).
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
24. Re:DDR2? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 11:28 · Score: 0
  
  > DDR3 is technically superior to DDR2 in almost every way:
  Really? I thought that in bare-metal specs, DDR2 was technically superior, and DDR3 was kind of like the Pentium 4 of RAM, shouting cheap blinged-out big numbers, but actually trailing in real performance compared to what came before it (DDR2).
25. Re:DDR2? by nametaken · 2011-01-04 11:33 · Score: 1
  
  I once heard someone comment that IT folks' personal machines are often like plumbers and carpenters homes, we often have some pretty haggard shit.
  We can get by on less, we worry too much about invisible details and no project is ever finished.
26. Re:DDR2? by Corporate+Troll · 2011-01-04 22:46 · Score: 1
  
  Hehe, good point. There is probably some truth to it, but not as much as you'd like. While my life before getting married was pretty much in geek-wonderland-a-core-i7-is-not-enough, I ended up getting to know a whole new world. A world where people aren't poor, but their computers are in the range of Intel P-IV / AMD Athlon XP machines in the 2.0GHz range with 512MB to 1GB RAM and they do just fine. The computer does the (limited) task they demand from it and that's it.
  If you think that most people -who can afford it- have recent computers, you're into some big surprise. For many people this is a tool and won't replace it until it breaks and/or doesn't do what they want. I can fully understand them: I still have my CRT TV because I will not replace it before it breaks. Does the job, and it's money wasted to replace it with some LCD/Plasma as it's only used to watch TV Programmes anyway (rarely a DVD... I don't even have a Blue-Ray. The only game console I own is a PS2 and that's SD).
  I personally, wouldn't be surprised if the average home actually uses a 4-5 year old computer as their primary machine.
27. Re:DDR2? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-05 12:43 · Score: 0
  
  Somebody lied to you. Or you misunderstood what you were told. Either way, you're wrong.
What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by eldavojohn · 2011-01-04 02:54 · Score: 2

DRAM began losing value most recently in December as the Western holiday shopping season wound down, Lin said. But major manufacturers such as Elpida Memory, Powerchip Semiconductor and Samsung Electronics kept pumping out chips to stay competitive, he said.

Really? They actually employed that strategy? "The market is saturated so we need to make more DRAM to raise profits." I don't understand, were they uninformed about demand being satisfied?

I mean, are they incapable of curbing production for a quarter? I understand these are huge plants that can't be turned on and off with the flip of a switch but if they're not careful they can hurt themselves indefinitely. I'm glad to be getting dirt cheap DDR3 sticks of memory but I don't want to see those companies compete each other into the red over it. I hope they're right when they say it's seasonal because it sounds like they're in for some tough times all the way through March. Farmers will tell you that flooding the market is a surefire way to destroy your competition as well as yourself ... unless of course you're subsidized but that's a whole other rant.

--
My work here is dung.
1. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by FooAtWFU · 2011-01-04 03:05 · Score: 2
  
  Well, you could overproduce and make mere pennies, or you could curb production and run the risk that your competitors overproduce (and earn pennies) while you earn even less. Collusion to raise prices is hard.
  
  --
  The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
2. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by alen · 2011-01-04 03:09 · Score: 1
  
  i've been following the PC market since the 1990's and the days of $50/MB of RAM. this happens every few years. manufacturers ramp up production and prices plummet. then a few months later they go up again, repeat. the complete cycle usually lasts 2-3 years
  you have to keep production running since the plants are built with debt and the interest has to be paid on a regular schedule
3. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by MillionthMonkey · 2011-01-04 03:23 · Score: 1
  
  So your competitors are minting pennies faster than you and they get to spend the extra pennies that they mint, whereas you do not because you need to mint the pennies even though by minting them you trigger inflation which makes everybody's pennies and extra pennies worth less on a per penny basis.
4. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 03:25 · Score: 0
  
  Exactly, this is what happened with farm production and how the idea of farm subsidies got started.
5. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by Arancaytar · 2011-01-04 03:27 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Collusion to raise prices is hard.
  Not to mention illegal. :P
6. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by camperdave · 2011-01-04 03:55 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Collusion to raise prices is hard.
  Not to mention illegal. :P
  Tell that to OPEC
  
  --
  When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
7. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by xystren · 2011-01-04 04:07 · Score: 2
  
  Go back a decade further to 1987 and I can tell you stories about paying just under $800/meg for my '286...Good old DIPP. needed to buy sets of 9 chips for a bank, 4 banks of 256k to make a megabyte, at ~$18 a chip. Now I look at the price of ram and never complain when I paid that price back then
8. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by marcosdumay · 2011-01-04 04:09 · Score: 1
  
  Those plants have very hight fixed costs (mainly interest on initial investiment), and very low unitary costs. That's why, even with record low prices it doesn't make sense to reduce production. While they may not recover the initial investment, they'd lose even more money if they don't produce at full capacity.
  
  --
  Rethinking email
9. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by alen · 2011-01-04 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  i remember in a school lab the teacher had the only Mac with a hard drive. 80MB. i thought it was so cool and that it would last a life time
10. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by Talderas · 2011-01-04 04:27 · Score: 3
  
  Which is conveniently under US jurisdic....
  oh wait...
  
  --
  "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
11. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by Nadaka · 2011-01-04 04:46 · Score: 1
  
  OPEC is not a US corporation.
12. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by Kjella · 2011-01-04 05:05 · Score: 2
  
  Formally, yes. In many markets where there are few actors, the market is transparent and the prices can be changed at will you get a very similar behavior anyway. If one starts a price war the others follow and no one is really gaining ground, they just all lose money on it. Even without actually colluding, they may all understand it's in their own best interest not to start such wars to begin with but rather "invite" to higher prices by raising them for a short while and see if others will follow. Perhaps the most obvious example are gas stations very close to each other, it's mostly a single price broadcast on a big billboard and you can be sure it takes only minutes before they know their competition has changed their prices. They follow each other like a man and his shadow.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
13. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 05:41 · Score: 1
  
  Relax. The _exact_ same thing happens every year. I've been building PCs for a very long time. The month after xmas is the time to do it precisely because of the oversupply and ripening parts. On the AMD front, the X6 has been out a while, the 6000 series ATi cards have been out a while, socket AM3 is mature. Now is the time to buy for very near cutting edge parts at a really steep discount.
  You can put together a very competitive single GPU card gaming rig for under $1k. An equivalent PC would cost $3k from Dell, the parts would be 2 years ago and the cooling would be inadequate. Don't get me started on expandability or power supply quality.
14. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by bhcompy · 2011-01-04 05:47 · Score: 1
  
  Neither are Chinese, Taiwanese, or Korean RAM manufacturers
15. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by petermgreen · 2011-01-04 08:54 · Score: 1
  
  The trick with OPEC is it's a cartel of countries rather than companies. This makes it very difficult to punish through foriegn legal systems.
  With memory chips (not to be confused with memory modules, some of the chip manufactuers also make modules but a lot of modules are made by companies that don't make the chips) at least one of the major manufacturers (micron) is US based and many of the others are part of large electronics companies with operations all over the world.
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
16. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by xystren · 2011-01-04 10:44 · Score: 1
  
  I remember my fries 10mb Sider for his Apple ][ - talk about a blast from the past. I remember my first 20mb HD thinking that was pretty kewl, until I got a RLL card and turned it into 32mb drive (that I thought would last a life time) How wrong we were.
17. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by Solandri · 2011-01-04 11:19 · Score: 1
  
  Really? They actually employed that strategy? "The market is saturated so we need to make more DRAM to raise profits." I don't understand, were they uninformed about demand being satisfied?
  
  I mean, are they incapable of curbing production for a quarter?
  Tragedy of the commons. If one company curbs production, that doesn't mean they make more money because prices rise. That means they lose money while their competitors make more money from the price increase. The average profit for the industry rises, but theirs falls while everyone else's goes up. As such, even though it's against the best interests of the industry as a whole, the best strategy for each company individually is to produce as many DRAM chips as they can.
  
  This is actually one of the scenarios where a free market doesn't work well. An analogous situation happens with overfishing. It's best for the entire industry to limit their catch, but a single boat limiting its catch is bearing the costs while the other boats gain the benefit. So there's no individual incentive to limit your catch. The airlines suffer from this too during fare wars, with fares sometimes dropping below what's needed to make the business sustainable. Most people (especially those who are anti-business) don't really think about this because it works for the end customer, at least in the short term.
18. Re:What Do You Do When Demand Is Satisfied? by Alarindris · 2011-01-04 14:00 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps the most obvious example are gas stations very close to each other, it's mostly a single price broadcast on a big billboard and you can be sure it takes only minutes before they know their competition has changed their prices. They follow each other like a man and his shadow.
  There is a reason for this! I used to work at a gas station, and law requires that we are within X cents of our nearest competitor and can only change prices once every 24 hours. Most stations opt then to do it right away in the morning before there is a steady stream of customers. These laws went into effect right after the gas crisis in the 70's to prevent price gouging.
  
  Also, there is a good chance that all the gas stations in town buy from the same distributor anyway, so they all have the same cost of buying gas in the first place. Just because it's a Mobil for example, doesn't mean they by "Mobil" gas. The name really doesn't mean anything.
Hmmm... by oic0 · 2011-01-04 02:56 · Score: 1

How this helps us must be over my head. I can't see $20 or $30 per PC price difference even filtering down to us.
1. Re:Hmmm... by z4ns4stu · 2011-01-04 03:02 · Score: 1
  
  It's economies of scale, mostly. When big companies (not just retailers, either) are saving $30/PC and they buy hundreds of thousands a year, it relieves stresses on other parts of their infrastructures that can lead to them spending more in other areas of the economy. The average consumer isn't directly affected, but even a minor drop in the cost of a component becomes a big cost saver for the major players.
  
  --
  The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass. - Dogen
2. Re:Hmmm... by Chibi+Merrow · 2011-01-04 03:03 · Score: 1
  
  How this helps us must be over my head. I can't see $20 or $30 per PC price difference even filtering down to us.
  You know you can order your own RAM sticks and put them in a computer yourself, right? It's not like you have to buy a pre-assembled system from a licensed dealer or something...
  
  --
  Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
  Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
3. Re:Hmmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 03:03 · Score: 1
  
  How this helps us must be over my head. I can't see $20 or $30 per PC price difference even filtering down to us.
  Not per PC. Get your PC with the minimum installed memory, and then upgrade the memory yourself. THAT'S how you get the savings. The original equipment manufacturer almost always overcharges for system memory. Especially Apple, and that's coming from an Apple fan.
  Oh, and don't get your memory from Best Buy. They overcharge even more than your OEM. Go somewhere like Newegg or TigerDirect. Shop around.
  I'd say it's the best time to max out the memory on your motherboard. 32G, here I come!
4. Re:Hmmm... by gman003 · 2011-01-04 03:07 · Score: 1
  
  Those who purchase RAM as an upgrade, or for a custom build, will probably see a pretty decent lowering in price.
5. Re:Hmmm... by Vectormatic · 2011-01-04 03:09 · Score: 1
  
  instead of 2gb of ram, your bottom basement bargain box will now feature 3gb of ram! (substitute 4gb, $1000 dell, 6gb if you want)
  Alternatively, when building your own on a budget, those $20 saved can be invested on a faster CPU, bigger hard-drive, faster video-card, bigger monitor, or your own personal improvement point, leading to a better computer
  Especially scenario #2 is beneficial to us card carying computer geeks, so if you cant see that, perhaps it is time to hand in that membership card
  
  --
  People, what a bunch of bastards
6. Re:Hmmm... by alen · 2011-01-04 03:10 · Score: 1
  
  all the online PC configurators are offering "free" upgrades to 6GB or 8GB RAM from 4GB
7. Re:Hmmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 03:12 · Score: 0
  
  that can lead to them spending more in other areas of the economy.
  Very true. Let's just hope those "other areas" are more jobs for us.
8. Re:Hmmm... by dogmatixpsych · 2011-01-04 03:14 · Score: 1
  
  It's already happening. I've seen at least two deals in the past week for 8 GB of DDR3 (2x4GB) for $65.
In other news... by MarcQuadra · 2011-01-04 02:59 · Score: 1

In other news...
Samsung has announced official sponsorship of the popular video-blog 'Will It Blend?'

--
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Excellent stocking stuffers by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2011-01-04 03:01 · Score: 3, Funny

"I got an action figure!" "I got some DRAM chips!" "I got a rock."

--
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
1. Re:Excellent stocking stuffers by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 03:50 · Score: 0
  
  "stocking stuffers....I got a rock"
  Wrong holiday.
Big surprise by dkleinsc · 2011-01-04 03:03 · Score: 1

Prices of durable consumer goods drop off dramatically directly after the biggest month for sale of durable consumer goods. Film at 11.

--
I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
Camelegg Graphs by eldavojohn · 2011-01-04 03:05 · Score: 1

How this helps us must be over my head. I can't see $20 or $30 per PC price difference even filtering down to us.
Well, for those of us that are savvy enough to build our own or upgrade existing, there sure has been evidence in pricing. Every memory I look at shows a pretty steady decline in price. Compare that to something like SSDs and you'll see the charts for SSDs fluctuate up and down more wildly. DDR3 especially seems to have an overall downward trend over the past couple months.

--
My work here is dung.
More history by Waffle+Iron · 2011-01-04 03:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

historic highs around $2.80

You want historic highs? I remember a DRAM crunch in the 1980s when prices spiked at about $1000 per megabyte. (That's about 150,000 times more costly per bit than current prices.)
Now, get off my lawn.
1. Re:More history by Paradise+Pete · 2011-01-04 03:58 · Score: 2
  
  I paid $125 to upgrade my Atari 400 from 8K to 32K.
2. Re:More history by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 03:59 · Score: 0
  
  I paid close to $1000.00 for 48k of ram for my Apple II. The chips even had the apple logo stamped on them.
  Now get off my nursing homes lawn!
3. Re:More history by divemaster · 2011-01-04 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  So my Mac mini upgrade to 8GB should come to about $31 million - without adjusting for inflation...
  Hey Apple's not that bad on ram upgrades !
  Hey did you buy the upgrade for the membrane keyboard? Ah the Atari 400 - my first computer, plus you could fly it like a starfighter. If only my Mac came with Star Raiders....
4. Re:More history by drinkypoo · 2011-01-04 04:47 · Score: 1
  
  Some of my friends supported themselves during that time by recycling DRAM DIPs from dumpster-diven PCBs. Propane torch the back of the PCB and they drop into a bowl of water, clean the legs with a sucker and/or braid, and then drop them into a homebuilt test rig. They made thousands. A little toxic for my tastes but doing that particular kind of stuff is over now anyway. (Maybe, though, you could bake SMT components off boards in an oven, if any of them were worth anything.)
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
5. Re:More history by TheRaven64 · 2011-01-04 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I don't remember being able to buy DDR3 chips for any price in the '80s...
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
6. Re:More history by garyok · 2011-01-04 05:48 · Score: 1
  
  Meh - the ZX81 16K RAM pack cost £50 in 1982, or $87.53 in Freedom Money. Adjusting for inflation, that's $191 (or $12,224/MB) in today's money.
  
  --
  One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
7. Re:More history by flyingfsck · 2011-01-04 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  Hmm, I can't imagine what 1 Megabyte of magnetic core would have cost...
  
  --
  Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
8. Re:More history by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 09:53 · Score: 0
  
  I remember it well also. Granted I was a kid but I had a Commodore 64 and a 512K RAM card that only had 256K on it. It was too expensive to buy the extra chips but I found some *on the ground* outside an Apple store. A bunch of DIMM or SIMM boards with 16 pin 256Kx1 DRAMs on them.
  I still don't know why or how they ended up there but after a session of desoldering, I had a 576K C64.
  For the curious.
9. Re:More history by Nyder · 2011-01-04 12:20 · Score: 1
  
  I remember when 640k was enough...
  
  --
  Be seeing you...
I know, but he doesn't and neither does she by tepples · 2011-01-04 03:09 · Score: 1

You know you can order your own RAM sticks and put them in a computer yourself, right?
I know that. Most end users don't, and many own (older but paid-for) PCs that use previous generations of RAM technology.

It's not like you have to buy a pre-assembled system from a licensed dealer or something
In the case of video game hardware, sometimes one does. A lot of video games are never released for PC.
1. Re:I know, but he doesn't and neither does she by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 04:18 · Score: 0
  
  I can see your point, but most tech-tarded people have a geek friend that they get advice from. I know I'm surrounded by people asking for advice. Of course, that doesn't account for the wannabe geeks that THINK they're experts. My way of dealing with them without getting an anyeurism is to tell them that they are "TNT". They usually smile and say thank you. TNT = "TechNo Tarded".
2. Re:I know, but he doesn't and neither does she by hairyfeet · 2011-01-04 06:45 · Score: 1
  
  If you have an older machine it is still VERY affordable to "max out" the RAM nowadays. for example many of those late P4/early Pentium D era machines would be maxed out on 2GB of DDR RAM, which you can get for around $58 at Newegg. With DDR 2 the 2GB sticks are naturally higher but again most except the last boards released before DDR 3 will max out on the cheaper 2GB sticks and even if your PC will take 4GB sticks they are usually overkill for anything but CAD. My boys are playing their MMOs on a couple of early Pentium D systems and frankly with XP 2GB of RAM is plenty. Hell after running the benchmarks in PCWizard I found that even with only 1GB it was the youngest GPU that was the bottleneck (an old X1650 Pro) so instead of maxing the box I simply added an HD4830 and now the only thing that constrains his game is his latency.
  Even on newer machine DDR 2 can be quite affordable as long as one doesn't go for the max chips. Last year at this time when the annual slump hit I filled mine with 2 more 2GB DDR 2 800MHz chips bringing the total to 8GB and frankly with Superfetch everything already runs in RAM and did so when I was at 4GB so it was more because I wanted to fill out the board than anything else. Since this is a late model AMD AM2+ board it will take the 4GB chips, but what would be the point other than ePeen bragging rights? Win 7 X64 is already using 6.5GB for superfetch and even when I game I don't see any games running into memory as the bottleneck. With anything above 3GB one finds it is nearly always the GPU and HDD that is the bottlenecks so why buy the more expensive chips?
  And finally what does consoles have to do with anything? All the consoles are frankly long past prime and using seriously old tech in them which certainly isn't gonna be affected by falling PC prices. Considering if you DIY (which is so simple nowadays I let the 15 year old build his own and frankly the only thing he needed from me was to borrow my screwdriver) you can build a really nice triple core AMD for around $400 why would you not simply have both? It isn't like you can't find a bazillion other uses for that PC when not gaming on it, whereas good luck finding a use for that Gamecube or PS2 you don't play anymore. And frankly the price of games on the consoles are just ridiculous when compared to the PC. I buy really good games all day long for less than $15 each from places like GOG and Steam, where you gonna find that for consoles?
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
3. Re:I know, but he doesn't and neither does she by tepples · 2011-01-04 07:51 · Score: 1
  
  And frankly the price of games on the consoles are just ridiculous when compared to the PC.
  Console games are cheaper for multiplayer. One copy of a $60 console game costs $60. Two copies of a $60 PC game that (like most PC games) doesn't support HTPC play or spawn installation cost $80. Moreover, you have to buy two to four PCs and two to four sets of RAM sticks.
  
  I buy really good games all day long for less than $15 each from places like GOG and Steam, where you gonna find that for consoles?
  I buy sub-$15 games that support two to four players on Wii Shop, and even a $50 Wii disc is $12.50 per player, where you gonna find that for PC?
4. Re:I know, but he doesn't and neither does she by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2011-01-04 09:18 · Score: 1
  
  I'm looking at a new machine right now, and getting 4x4G costs about $200. Really, not that expensive at all. The SSD is about twice that.
  
  --
  "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
5. Re:I know, but he doesn't and neither does she by hairyfeet · 2011-01-04 13:29 · Score: 1
  
  The problem with your logic is this: In just 30 days that $60 game will be $40 on PC, still $60 on consoles. At 2 months it will be at $30 and at 3 it will most likely be at $20. Meanwhile if you are lucky the game at 3 months will be at $40 on the consoles, and that is if you can find it new or have to deal with the screwjob that is Gamestop.
  Then figure in the fact that the PC can do several other jobs besides gaming, and unless you bought the Shitty Worst Buy special you are looking on an average of a decade or more of use. Hell I have just recently retired my circa 99 733MHz P3 into the spare PC bin, after it had gone through my hands, both the kids, and finally my mom, who just got a 3.06GHz Celeron hand me down from one of the boys who got a Pentium D with an HD4830 hand me down.
  The problem with consoles is the ONLY way the increased price comes out ahead for consoles is in a VERY specific and small niche, the multiplayer in the same room niche, which frankly is nearly DOA. All the newer games are requiring play over the net, which means you are all stuck buying more games only on the consoles you will shell out more for them. The only one bucking that trend is the wii, which frankly has given up on gamers and become the "casual platform" for when grandma comes over.
  So I'm sorry but like the Macbook Pro with a certain group (graphic designers) your solution only comes out ahead in certain specific circumstances that are in the case of consoles frankly becoming as rare as 8 tracks and will only get worse as time wears on, simply because the game designers have figured out that "multiplayer = multiple copies" means more $$$ for them. Sorry.
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
6. Re:I know, but he doesn't and neither does she by tepples · 2011-01-04 14:39 · Score: 1
  
  Then figure in the fact that the PC can do several other jobs besides gaming
  So can the combination of a console and the homework-and-Facebook PC that most people end up buying, even with its underpowered Intel GMA (Graphics My [censored]) GPU.
  
  The only one bucking that [one machine and copy per player] trend is the wii, which frankly has given up on gamers and become the "casual platform" for when grandma comes over.
  I was a Wii fan until the "HBC killer" updates (4.2 and 4.3) and the R4i lawsuits. Unlike Microsoft, Nintendo has chosen to ignore indie game developers with nontraditional business structures. So I take it all indie games go on the PC, all non-networked multiplayer games go on the Wii, and non-networked multiplayer indie games do not deserve to exist. Or what am I missing?
Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by tepples · 2011-01-04 03:13 · Score: 1

Get your PC with the minimum installed memory, and then upgrade the memory yourself.

Can the average PC user (not necessarily the more technically inclined users here on Slashdot) be trusted not to screw anything up inside a desktop or laptop PC when installing RAM sticks?

The original equipment manufacturer almost always overcharges for system memory. Especially Apple, and that's coming from an Apple fan.
Apple gets away with it by making its products' cases hard to open.

I'd say it's the best time to max out the memory on your motherboard. 32G, here I come!
32 GB? What laptop takes anywhere near that?
1. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Desler · 2011-01-04 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  32 GB? What laptop takes anywhere near that?
  Who said they were talking about putting 32GB into a laptop? But if you really most know check out this.
2. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 03:29 · Score: 1
  
  Can the average PC user (not necessarily the more technically inclined users here on Slashdot) be trusted not to screw anything up inside a desktop or laptop PC when installing RAM sticks?
  It's not rocket science. You open the case, plug it in, close the case. Done.
  
  Apple gets away with it by making its products' cases hard to open.
  That might be true with the Mac Mini, but my Mac Pro is almost laughably easy to open. You flip a switch in the back, and the side falls off. You pull out a tray at the top, and the memory and processors are right there with nothing in the way.
  
  I'd say it's the best time to max out the memory on your motherboard. 32G, here I come!
  32 GB? What laptop takes anywhere near that?
  Oh, we're talking about laptops. I'd say it evens out then, because some PC laptops might be easier to get into than an Apple laptop, but every time I upgrade memory in a PC desktop, I come out with bloodied knuckles from all of the sharp metal surrounding the memory slots. Just as a sidenote, not everyone is stuck on laptops. In my experience, they just don't measure up in terms of performance, whether it's a Mac or a PC.
  And just for reference, I have a Mac Pro (not to be confused with the Macbook Pro) with two quad-core Xeon processors, 8G of memory, and two 1TB hard drives on RAID. I do freelance video editing as a side job.
3. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by clone53421 · 2011-01-04 03:29 · Score: 2
  
  Can the average PC user (not necessarily the more technically inclined users here on Slashdot) be trusted not to screw anything up inside a desktop or laptop PC when installing RAM sticks?
  I’m inclined to say yeah, most of them could. And the very few who couldn’t probably know it and wouldn’t touch the inside of their computer if their life depended on it, which is okay because they are probably related to half a dozen people who could.
  Yeah, you’re going to have a few truly incompetent and stupid people who take a screwdriver to their PC’s innards and screw things up something serious, but at some point we have to allow natural selection to do its job...
  
  --
  Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
4. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by badboy_tw2002 · 2011-01-04 03:46 · Score: 1
  
  Mines a year old and could do 16 if I put up the cash (and threw out the 8 I have), so I don't think its a stretch to think we'll be getting there in the near future.
5. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 03:46 · Score: 1
  
  Wow, I screwed up the formatting on that. The "That might be true with the Mac Mini . . ." is mine, not tepples'.
  My apologies.
  Had to wait for Slashdot's submission system to get over its "You must wait a little bit before using this resource; please try again later" garbage.
6. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Gadget_Guy · 2011-01-04 03:48 · Score: 1
  
  Can the average PC user (not necessarily the more technically inclined users here on Slashdot) be trusted not to screw anything up inside a desktop or laptop PC when installing RAM sticks?
  Who cares? We are only talking to Slashdot readers here. Those people that you think will not be able to insert memory won't get to read that advice because it is highly unlikely that they are here. And just because Ma and Pa can't do the installation doesn't mean the advice is not good for the rest of us.
7. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by LordLimecat · 2011-01-04 03:54 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Can the average PC user....be trusted not to screw anything up inside a desktop or laptop PC when installing RAM sticks?
  From personal experience, yes. Show them a picture of where the ram slot is, how to insert it, and "make sure the notch lines up", and generally they either figure it out (80%), or call for help (20%).
  
  Non-techies arent morons, you know, and installing ram is intentionally very hard to screw up.
8. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by jedidiah · 2011-01-04 04:26 · Score: 1
  
  Installing memory is pretty easy these days. It's not 1984.
  OTOH, some people can screw up boiling water. (my local windows problem child is like that)
  If you can follow instructions on a box of rice-a-roni, you can do a RAM upgrade on a PC.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
9. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by jedidiah · 2011-01-04 04:28 · Score: 1
  
  Yes. There are plenty of "non-geek" activities that require a similar level of skill, adaptability, and attention to detail.
  We here at Slashdot aren't the only ones capable of learning how to do something new or complicated.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
10. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by drinkypoo · 2011-01-04 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  Great. Now go back and explain to them how they killed their memory with ESD, and that they now have to process a warranty return and lie about using a wrist strap.
  No, I don't use a wrist strap when I install memory, I just roll up my sleeves and keep at least one forearm in contact with the case metal, with the machine plugged in but turned off physically (where possible.)
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
11. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by hedwards · 2011-01-04 05:01 · Score: 1
  
  The only way I can think of to screw it up is to either try and force the chip in the wrong orientation or fail to take the appropriate precautions against static. Computers have been increasingly color coded since round about the PC97 standard.
  
  At this point, if it looks like it fits, it's a pretty good bet that it is intended to go in that slot.
12. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by adolf · 2011-01-04 05:20 · Score: 1
  
  When I instruct the lay person in the art of installing RAM (right after the "I'd be happy to do this for you, but it's cheaper to do it yourself and it's bloody simple" speech), I include an instruction to keep oneself grounded during the operation. It just takes a second, and so far, every single user-installed RAM upgrade I've recommended (and I've recommended RAM upgrades for nearly every single personal computer that I've touched) has gone just fine.
  Folks don't want to screw up their computer. And they understand ESD quite well enough by default -- after all, they've spent their whole lives getting zapped by metal bannisters and such from time to time. They just need a little bit of a clue to help them to tie the concepts together.
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
13. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  Great. Now go back and explain to them how they killed their memory with ESD, and that they now have to process a warranty return and lie about using a wrist strap.
  No, I don't use a wrist strap when I install memory, I just roll up my sleeves and keep at least one forearm in contact with the case metal, with the machine plugged in but turned off physically (where possible.)
  You are so full of BS, that i have to call you out.
  - I've been juggling RAM for decades, and I've yet to kill any with ESD. ESD might exist, but I can't get it to kill anything for love nor money. I don't know anyone (IRL) which has fried a chip due to ESD.
  - Lie about using a wrist strap, - You're going to crack under the pressure? Grow some balls.
  - Your line "keep at least one forearm in contact with the case metal" has got me thinking. When is the last time I've seen a laptop with a reasonable amount of metal which you could touch with your forearm while installing ram. All of the laptops i've used in the last 5years (excluding the newer macbooks), have a removeable slot for 2x dimms on the rear. There is barely enough room for your fingers to pop in a stick of ram, let alone get ur forearm to touch something metal.
14. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by TheRaven64 · 2011-01-04 05:22 · Score: 1
  
  Can the average PC user (not necessarily the more technically inclined users here on Slashdot) be trusted not to screw anything up inside a desktop or laptop PC when installing RAM sticks?
  My mother managed to upgrade the RAM in her computer, following some instructions over the telephone, and she's one of the least computer-literate people I know.
  
  Apple gets away with it by making its products' cases hard to open.
  Let me guess, you've never used a Mac. All of them have very easily accessible RAM slots. The Mac Pro and the old PowerMac G5 let you slide everything out including the motherboard with far less effort than any PC I've dismantled other than a few servers. The PowerBooks / MacBooks Pro have a small cover on the underside, held in with four (philips head) screws, with the RAM slots directly underneath. I've not looked at the MacBook, but the iBook just required moving a few clips so the keyboard slid out and then putting the RAM in underneath.
  In spite of that, it's cheaper (often by as much as 50%) to get the default RAM configuration, throw the stock RAM in the bin, buy modules from a third party, and install them.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
15. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Sir_Lewk · 2011-01-04 05:30 · Score: 1
  
  Uncomfortable truth: your day job isn't really all that hard, any tool can install ram.
  
  --
  "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
16. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by n1ckml007 · 2011-01-04 05:33 · Score: 2
  
  I've been preaching the no ESD straps for a long time. I have never killed any electronics with ESD.
17. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by ColdWetDog · 2011-01-04 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  ... The PowerBooks / MacBooks Pro have a small cover on the underside, held in with four (philips head) screws, with the RAM slots directly underneath. I've not looked at the MacBook, but the iBook just required moving a few clips so the keyboard slid out and then putting the RAM in underneath.
  
  I think he's just used to Dell laptops - you just drop them on the floor and the RAM (and hard drive and 8 flimsy plastic doors) pop off. Really can't get easier than that.
  
  --
  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
18. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by bill_mcgonigle · 2011-01-04 06:17 · Score: 1
  
  I used to have a job that included helping computer-illiterate old ladies upgrade the RAM on their MacSE's over the phone. Those were some long calls. I think we sent out the Torx drivers and Mac crackers with the RAM. "Now, ma'am, don't touch that [description of flyback transformer] or you might die." None ever gave up and all were successful. I think at the time computer users were a self-selected hardened population.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
19. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by gparent · 2011-01-04 06:17 · Score: 1
  
  I haven't used a wrist strap since I was born, and never actually paid attention to ESD in anyway, and have never, ever broke a single piece of electronic equipment. It really doesn't matter.
20. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by TheRaven64 · 2011-01-04 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  It's quite a lot easier with DIMMs. I can imagine talking through installing SIPs or DIPs on the phone was a bit tricky. SIMMs had that horrible push-sideways thing where they looked installed but weren't. With DIMMs, the instructions are basically 'look for a slot that's as long as the module. Try pushing it in, if it doesn't go in easily, try it the other way around. Make sure the clips at the side are shut.'
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
21. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Mashiki · 2011-01-04 06:46 · Score: 1
  
  Well my 3 year old board with 3 DDR slots could support 32gb of memory(8x3). My 2yr old board(GA-G41M-ES2L) which was on the cheap side supports DDR2 8GB(4x2). The board I'm looking at supports a max of 64GB(DDR3) in 4 slots. I really don't see this as anything huge, back in early 2000 when memory was expensive. Mobo's generally supported 2gb(when 256-512mb was the norm), and servers could support 64gb in 8 to 12 slots.
  
  --
  Om, nomnomnom...
22. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by drinkypoo · 2011-01-04 06:47 · Score: 1
  
  Don't quit your day job, you're not that funny.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
23. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Amouth · 2011-01-04 06:57 · Score: 1
  
  my personal favorate was years ago - a guy bought a PC66 dimm and took it home to install it
  when he brought back and complained it didn't work i noticed the notch on the chip had been cut and widened
  long argument short - it wouldn't fit so he figured memory is memory and cut out the notch to make it fit..
  he needed an EDO dimm - i was more surprised that nothing was damaged.. i still wouldn't take the memory as a return.
  
  --
  '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
24. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Tom+Womack · 2011-01-04 06:58 · Score: 1
  
  Computer components are designed to be installed by untrained labourers who left their parents' farm in Hunan province last week to seek their fortune in the factories of Shenzhen. Connectors are keyed, connectors with different purposes are keyed differently, and almost everything has locking tabs so you don't knock things out unintentionally.
25. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by kimvette · 2011-01-04 07:04 · Score: 1
  
  My roommate broke the screen on one of my iPhones (well, the cover). She is completely not tech savvy - in her words she is "computer stupid." But, she got online and researched it and found a repair kit and instructions - then when the kit came she searched youtube and found some videos, and did 99% of it herself (she insisted). The only thing I had to do was clean some of the shards from the old crystal off of the bezel because she was afraid of over-heating the plastic bezel. So, I did that for her and then she was back in the race. I was so proud of her!
  She knows near nothing about technology, but really, really wanted to fix the iPhone.
  However contrast her to my mom: I, my brother, and a couple other people have tried to help her navigate netflix. She just doesn't get anything computer related, and doesn't care to learn. She just wants to get her bingo schedule, and that's it. She is finally starting to grasp how to cue up movies, but it's only a year after sitting down with her several times and having her watch, then go through the steps as I talk her through step by step, and then do it on her own, and repeat that whole process several times.
  I don't blame age - I know people much older than my mom who are very tech savvy and have been on teh interwebz since the mid 90s - people who got their first computer in their mid-80s and are power users now.
  It all has to do with motivation. If you don't care to learn and put up mental blocks for yourself, you're just not going to get it. If you think that lump of plastic and silicon is smarter than you, you're not going to grasp it because you let yourself be intimidated by a stupid, unthinking machine.
  Then, you have the types who are afraid to even unplug the computer, and if they want to move a computer across the room, they hire someone to do it.
  So your 20% number is off. I'd say 50% of people can do it on their own, another 20% can be talked through it over the phone, and 30% won't even bother to try.
  
  --
  The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
26. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by LordLimecat · 2011-01-04 07:07 · Score: 2
  
  and that they now have to process a warranty return and lie about using a wrist strap.
  In the last 5 years doing IT work, I have NEVER used a wrist strap. I have probably installed well over a terabyte of RAM, totalling well over 200 sticks, as well as building 30-40 computers, and NEVER had a component fried when I was done with it.
  
  See, when you open the METAL CASE of a computer, youre touching METAL, and discharging most of the ESD you have built up, so having someone fry a stick of ram in that manner is really pretty rare, especially if you mentioned "hold it by the heat spreader, NOT the pins"-- as even if you do discharge on the heatspreader, I dont think it would do very much.
27. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by LordLimecat · 2011-01-04 07:09 · Score: 1
  
  - Lie about using a wrist strap, - You're going to crack under the pressure? Grow some balls
  If you honestly fry the RAM from ESD, are you really going to be that cheap? Ram is what, $8 a gig now? Usually part of growing up is learning what "personal responsibility" is.
28. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by bill_mcgonigle · 2011-01-04 07:13 · Score: 1
  
  SIMMs had that horrible push-sideways thing where they looked installed but weren't
  Yeah, I only ever upgraded one PC with DIP's (a young'in they call me). These were SIMM's, and despite the tilt-n-click nature, these old ladies all got 'Happy Mac's. Frankly, the pressure needed to put the DIMM's in some machines might be the biggest hurdle. Some of my Apple laptops have had SO-DIMM modules with tilt-n-click insertions. Not so bad for people who are expected to navigate Interstates and live.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
29. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by acohen1 · 2011-01-04 07:27 · Score: 2
  
  I've never used an ESD strap and have never killed any electronics with ESD. I've even zapped a motherboard while working on carpet (dumb) and it worked for years. I just make sure I touch the case first but i've installed RAM around a hundred times from 30-pin SIMMs on a 486 to triple channel DDR3 on an i7. I once had a 512MB ddr-2600 crucial DIMM cause BSODs and need to be RMAed after about 2 years of use, but i doubt that was ESD related.
30. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Rudeboy777 · 2011-01-04 07:39 · Score: 1
  
  His dayjob is trolling, you've just commended him for a job well done.
  
  --
  From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
31. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 07:58 · Score: 0
  
  To be fair this is laptops we're talking about. 16GB support is _fairly_ recent, and I'm not sure where you can get a stock 32GB deploy.
  Also, how do you get 32GB out of 8x3?
32. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by eepok · 2011-01-04 08:59 · Score: 1
  
  That's in line with my experience. The hardest part is getting over the fear and you just need to know how to talk to people to help them gain the confidence to install their own RAM, expansion cards, and even hard disks.
33. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by petermgreen · 2011-01-04 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  Though DDR3 has added the complication of slot ordering. Counter intuitively (it makes sense from a transmission lines POV but relatively few people understand those even among the tech savvy) you generally have to fill the FURTHEST slot from the CPU on each channel first.
  And while the primary and secondry slots on each channel are usually a different color there doesn't seem to be any consistency over which slot gets which color.
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
34. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2011-01-04 09:20 · Score: 1
  
  Apple gets away with it by making its products' cases hard to open.
  The monobloc MBPs are really easy - 10 screws. The HDD requires a T6 torx, but that's about it, and it takes all of 15 minutes to upgrade both disk and ram.
  
  --
  "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
35. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by petermgreen · 2011-01-04 09:29 · Score: 1
  
  Apple gets away with it by making its products' cases hard to open
  While apple has had some howlers in the past AFAICT all current macs have fairly easy to access ram (though on the laptops you have to take the bottom off which isn't difficult but does involve quite a few screws).
  Hard drives OTOH seem to be rather painful on many current apple machines.
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
36. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 10:40 · Score: 0
  
  20% is too high a risk when you are talking about 1000's of dollars invested in a machine and significantly more on valuable data. The average consumer isn't going to know what to do when the 20% failure happens. They will panic and think that all is gone. Then spend $600 on labor and or DRM issues and other software. Think about recovering data and another grand on a new computer. That isn't the cost of the computer, but given all that goes with it you end up having spent at least.
  Microsoft Office starts at about $150 retail
  Desktop Computers at Staples start at about $500
  Extended Warranty is another $150-$200 (and that is only a basic hardware warranty)
  New subscriptions to anti-virus from Norton $70 (since they always sell you the 360 despite using just the AV part)
  Setup services are another $100
  Data transfer services from the old computer is another $100
  DRM issues- people have as much as $1000 invested in DRM'd music which is locked into the machine, video, and other content (which is usually just lost when a new PC is purchased)
  ok!
37. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by petermgreen · 2011-01-04 10:43 · Score: 1
  
  Well my 3 year old board with 3 DDR slots could support 32gb of memory(8x3)
  8x3 is 24 not 32,
  Something seems wrong with your statement. If 8 is the number of modules than i've never seen 3GB modules. If 8 is the module size then I doubt a board of that age would support them and all the boards i've seen that did support them had a lot more than 3 slots.
  Did you mean to say 8 modules each 4GB in size? if so then that is more belivable but only for a server board.
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
38. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by rtfa-troll · 2011-01-04 10:54 · Score: 1
  
  According to the guys who used to test this in the company I used to work for ESD doesn't normally cause instant failure. Instead it causes subtle damage and long term failure. Typically by making insulation between on chip components weaker and subject to break down. They measured causes of hardware failure and this was a key one along side temperature variation. Their statement was that at least 80% of random failures could be eliminated in a temperature stabilised data centre where ESD procedures are properly observed. This, of course, assumes that you don't have zinc hair problems.
  I'm not sure how this would play out on consumer hardware where temperature variance is unavoidable, but when it comes to my own stuff I try to ground myself and use anti-static envelopes
  BTW; the reason that you use a strap rather than grabbing ground directly is that this reduces the chance of frying yourself. When you touch live with one hand and grip ground with the other the route from live to ground is through your heart. Think about it. The normal anti-static strap contains an (approximately) 1M Ohm resistor which means that any current to ground through your body is unlikely to cause damage.
  One compromise is to discharge to ground (touch a copper pipe connected deep into the earth e.g.) before doing anything and after every time you walk around but not whilst actually working on the system. Never wear any synthetic clothing whilst working on electronics (all cotton is good; mixtures of different materials bad; synthetic floors terrible). Preferably make sure you use the same ground for yourself and the system. Another safety measure worth checkng you have is a ground leakage (differential) circuit breaker on your electricity supply so that if any current does go through you it gets cut off quickly.
  
  --
  =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
39. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Miamicanes · 2011-01-04 11:50 · Score: 1
  
  > Can the average PC user (not necessarily the more technically inclined users here on Slashdot) be
  > trusted not to screw anything up inside a desktop or laptop PC when installing RAM sticks?
  Trusted to install? Sure. Trusted to buy the right ones, especially when trying to max out a motherboard's capacity? Er.... maybe. Maybe.
  Half the problem is that most motherboard manuals suck at telling owners what differentiates compatible ram from incompatible ram. Sure, they'll list a dozen "certified" Dimm modules that either haven't been available for sale in North America since 2007, cost 16 times as much as anything you could buy from Newegg, or just plain don't even exist in Google's universe, but it's rare for them to come out and say, "if you buy a N-gig DIMM, it has to use low-density chips organized as @{x, y, z}, which means a double-sided module with at least 16 chips". I thought it was a problem that died with PC100 ram, but it appears an entire generation of DDR2 motherboards (thanks to either nVidia and/or Intel, not sure... maybe both, but it sounds more like something Intel would do in the name of value engineering to shave 2c off the price of a $40 board...) impose limits on what DIMM configurations will work that made the mess circa PC100-vs-PC133 look tame and straightforward.
  Case in point: my dad's old motherboard ("old" = 3 years), which I had the pleasure of upgrading last summer (not fun). It had four slots, but the ONLY configuration in which you could make it use 8 gigs was a pair of double-sided 4-gig modules. Four 2-gig modules? Nope. Had to be a pair of 4-gig modules of specific density, with nothing whatsoever in the other pair of sockets. And the only way I even found THAT out was because something about how the manual was worded struck me as odd, and within 3 seconds of hitting Google I found page after page of furious users who didn't find out that little detail until AFTER they ordered the ram from newegg. Best of all, 99 times out of 100, online stores like Newegg don't even TELL you what the ram's configuration is besides the timing, and most of the time the pictures are explicitly tagged as "representative", so you can't even go by them.
  IMHO, the only thing worse than trying to shop for RAM is trying to wade through the complete mess Intel and AMD have both made of their part-numbering schemes, where you now officially can't even be assured that two chips bearing identical SKUs will benchmark within 10% of each other, let alone within a fraction of a percent. 4 years ago, I thought it was bad. 18 months ago, when I did my latest upgrade, I thought it was intolerable. Right now, you'd almost have to put a gun to my head to make me dedicate a month of my life to finding my next CPU if you tried to talk me into upgrading today, because it's borderline impossible for even someone who's been building his own PCs for more than 20 years to make informed choices about the crap Intel and AMD are both shoving out the door right now (I use the term "crap", because all evidence seems to suggest that they're both doing it so they can charge more for less and get away with it by intentionally spreading confusion about what's actually being sold).
40. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Raenex · 2011-01-04 12:18 · Score: 1
  
  I once zapped a PC with static electricity through the little key lock in front. After that, it would eat keyboards. I ended up replacing the motherboard.
41. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 13:20 · Score: 0
  
  Hmm, I always try to hold it at the non-conductive edge of the PCB. The part that's vulnerable to ESD is the chip itself (or so I was always told) which is right under the metal, conductive heat spreader.
  Pretty sure I specifically remember reading that human skin can't detect a discharge less than 100 millivolts, which is enough to blow a hole 10 microns wide in a surface-mounted IC. So I'll stick to holding memory by the PCB edge rather than the pins OR the heat spreader.
42. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by Compaqt · 2011-01-04 16:27 · Score: 1
  
  ESD is only a concern if you're on a carpet, right?
  
  --
  I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
43. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by initialE · 2011-01-04 16:31 · Score: 1
  
  Installing ram is easy to screw up, because it is easy to insert lightly, and hard to jam it in fully.
  
  --
  Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
44. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by fiddley · 2011-01-05 01:20 · Score: 1
  
  It IS pretty rare to totally fry a component from static discharge. The more likely outcome is that any stray ESD that you generate overloads the transistors in the chip to such an extent that they can become susceptible to bit flipping during operation. They'll often be fine for some time (minutes to weeks, months at a time) then randomly flip a, or some, bits and cause a crash you can't figure out.
  
  There's a reason respectable repair shops use those wrist straps, anti-static mats etc.
  
  --
  If medicine were ever perfected, we'd all be the same.
45. Re:Can Joe Sixpack be trusted to install RAM? by adolf · 2011-01-06 18:26 · Score: 1
  
  Or on the vinyl. Or on the ceramic tile, in the dry Ohio winter with radiant floor heating. Or...
  ESD is always a bit of a concern. But it's so easy to eliminate that concern that it's not worth worrying about where or when it is likely to be a larger a problem.
  
  --
  Kid-proof tablet..
Ram it in the motherboard by digitaldc · 2011-01-04 03:17 · Score: 1

PC makers typically spend about 10 percent, or $20 to $36, of a PC's total manufacturing cost on DRAM.

So, if you buy a computer for $200-$360, you are basically getting it at cost.

--
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
1. Re:Ram it in the motherboard by hedwards · 2011-01-04 05:03 · Score: 1
  
  That's already known. The profit margin for computers in that range is practically non-existent. Which is why you'll find those low end Dells without the on board temperature monitor or really anything optional. And why if you want to adjust the configuration even with cheaper components it ends up costing double the price.
  
  I'd be surprised if that didn't apply to most other mass producers of computers as well.
A phrase designed for this day? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 03:30 · Score: 0

Finally a chance to use the phrase "cheap as chips" in context.
$2.80 to $0.84? by gravis777 · 2011-01-04 03:30 · Score: 1

Wow, am I ever shopping at the wrong places! :-)
1. Re:$2.80 to $0.84? by jimicus · 2011-01-04 03:40 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  That's probably for the chip, before it's soldered onto a DIMM, before it's even left the factory.
  You'd be amazed how much money needs to be spent to turn it into something you can actually plug into your PC.
2. Re:$2.80 to $0.84? by arcsimm · 2011-01-04 03:53 · Score: 1
  
  Still, my jaw hit the floor when, on reading this article, I checked Newegg and found that an 8GB DDR3 kit could be had for less money than what I paid for a 4GB kit at this time last year. I'm almost certainly going to have to jump on that...
3. Re:$2.80 to $0.84? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 04:00 · Score: 0
  
  Indeed. Also note that it say giga-BIT, not giga-BYTE. That's a 128MB memory chip. So you need 8 of those to make a 1GB stick of RAM.
4. Re:$2.80 to $0.84? by eepok · 2011-01-04 04:02 · Score: 1
  
  That's exactly what I did after reading the article-- ran off to Newegg to check if the manufacturing variable is being directly correlated to sales prices... and it is!
  This is great news for those who bought new computers (or built new systems) over the Holidays and didn't max out the RAM due to the price. I have a couple people who I advised in December about buying full systems that I need to contact now to say, "You know how I said that RAM prices fluctuate significantly with natural disasters, political strife, etc.? Well, the prices are down due to over-production and it's time to max out that system you skimped on! Make that computer a 5-year investment!"
5. Re:$2.80 to $0.84? by LordLimecat · 2011-01-04 04:08 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Its also per gigaBIT, not gigabyte. Multiply by 8 and you have $22.40 sticks dropping to $6.40. I do remember it being around $20 a gig a while ago, and if you check current prices RAM is about $8 a gig now.
6. Re:$2.80 to $0.84? by antifoidulus · 2011-01-04 04:09 · Score: 1
  
  Not to mention the density requirements imposed by requiring it to be in a form factor you can plug into your PC. Denser memory is more expensive per byte than less dense memory.
  
  --
  Monstar L
7. Re:$2.80 to $0.84? by drinkypoo · 2011-01-04 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  That's exactly what I did after reading the article-- ran off to Newegg to check if the manufacturing variable is being directly correlated to sales prices... and it is!
  thanks for the confirmation, I just went there and ordered 4GB more RAM (bringing me up to 8GB) for $49.99... I am not super happy with the warranty process or the fact that I had to RMA my last pair of these DIMMs, but they are smoking fast: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL8D-4GBHK they have 8-8-8-21 timings which are misdetected by my Gigabyte motherboard, classy. I want all four DIMMs identical though. I intend to upgrade to a six-core processor (I have Phenom II X3 720 now) when they come down to $100, which is the most I've spent on anything in this computer so far. RAM, Video card, CPU, and motherboard were each $100 when I bought in. Now, I'm doubling my ram for half the original memory cost...
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
8. Re:$2.80 to $0.84? by gumpish · 2011-01-04 05:11 · Score: 1
  
  Newegg doesn't have any DDR3 less than $10/GB, which makes your $8/GB figure 20% lower than what that particular site offers.
  Where do you shop for RAM?
9. Re:$2.80 to $0.84? by klui · 2011-01-04 07:48 · Score: 1
  
  It's too bad this drop affects DDR2 and above and not DDR.
10. Re:$2.80 to $0.84? by LordLimecat · 2011-01-04 08:02 · Score: 1
  
  Check techbargains, they have several DDR3 sets of like 8GB for $65, and 6GB for under $45.
  
  Those deals may have passed, but here are some under $10/GB deals:
  4GB / $39.99
  2GB / $18.99
  8GB / $74.99
  $8 /GB deals from a mere 5 days ago
  
  Etc etc, it may fluctuate some, but its been around $8/GB for about a month now.
11. Re:$2.80 to $0.84? by karnal · 2011-01-04 10:15 · Score: 1
  
  Agreed; I have 4 older machines of the AMD single-core XP variety that are still in use in my house. I scrounged to get 1GB into my wife's machine (basic office tasks) and the others are now sitting at 768mb due to donations from a friend (a few 256MB sticks... can't beat free!)
  
  --
  Karnal
12. Re:$2.80 to $0.84? by petermgreen · 2011-01-04 10:56 · Score: 1
  
  Denser memory is more expensive per byte than less dense memory.
  Not really, denser memory should be cheaper per byte because the higher the density the more bytes you can cram on each wafer. Plus PCs are by far the largest user of ram so they get the largest economies of scale.
  Beyond a certain density though it becomes a new hotness and is expensive either because the process isn't fully worked out or because capacity can't keep up with demand.
  Right now the sweet spot on cost per gigabyte seems to be 1Gb on 2Gb chips (lower case b for bits uppercase for bytes) which with standard single or dual rank configurations (quad rank is possible but IIRC has both size issues and needs to be registered to work properly and afaict intel desktop chips aren't compatible with registered memory) gives 1GB, 2GB or 4GB modules.
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I can beat that... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 04:18 · Score: 1

How about $99.99 for a 16K ram pack for my Sinclair ZX-81?
That's about $6000 a megabyte.
1. Re:I can beat that... by xystren · 2011-01-04 10:42 · Score: 1
  
  yeah, I remember paying that also - but for the Timex-Sinclair 1000 (North American version of the ZX81). Damn scary when you think about it. Makes one think with now 8gb of memory, we should be mind-melding with computers now.
actual street costs by Type44Q · 2011-01-04 04:31 · Score: 1

At $0.84/gigabit, that's $27 for 4GB worth of loose DDR3 chips. Considering that a pair of 2GB DDR3 modules (@CAS latency 9) runs about $35 and up, the margins must be next to nonexistent. I just ordered a pair of 2GB DDR3 1600 modules (CL6) for $72; I wonder how much extra I got taken for...
Apple memory by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 05:17 · Score: 0

Wow, even Apple brought its prices down. Still expensive compared to other sources, but cheaper than the $100 per gig it was three months ago.
Disassembling the Mac mini by tepples · 2011-01-04 05:49 · Score: 1

Show them a picture of where the ram slot is
Good luck getting them past the steps of disassembling the Mac mini, iMac, or MacBook, and then getting everything back in place later.
1. Re:Disassembling the Mac mini by LordLimecat · 2011-01-04 07:33 · Score: 1
  
  Google it, search on youtube. Its not hard.
2. Re:Disassembling the Mac mini by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 16:20 · Score: 0
  
  Yep, generally Apple makes the RAM the easiest thing to access nowadays.
Mac mini by tepples · 2011-01-04 05:57 · Score: 1

Let me guess, you've never used a Mac. All of them have very easily accessible RAM slots. The Mac Pro and the old PowerMac G5
Let me guess, you've never used a Mac mini from before mid-2010. Quoting Apple's support page about Mac mini memory upgrades: "Important: You should not manually upgrade or replace the memory in these Mac mini models. Instead, contact an Apple Authorized Service Provider to install memory for you."

I've not looked at the MacBook, but the iBook just required
MacBooks require the removal of several screws of different lengths, which can be a pain upon reassembly after a family member has spilled them. There are three different procedures.
I wish the rest of the industry would do the same by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 06:54 · Score: 0

Passive and analog component vendors have not ramped up production to acceptable levels after the recession. (Supposedly afraid of another recession coming.) In the mean time, they are enjoying the higher prices and higher margins. Digital products never really went out, but analog parts are still ridiculously difficult to procure at a reasonable cost.
A stocking full of RAM by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 07:44 · Score: 0

Yes, because nothing says Merry Christmas like a stick of RAM. Sure the toys that "I" want might use a stick of RAM (but it will never translate to a cheaper end product for the consumer). Last that I checked, most women don't want RAM jewelery and nor kids want to play RAM pick-up sticks.
Re:ESD by DocSavage64109 · 2011-01-04 10:49 · Score: 1

I tend to agree about the exaggerated fears of ESD, though a lot of that could be environmental. I know that there are rare days where you get zapped over and over on anything from grocery carts to doorknobs. I would be very careful during such a day.
wholesale new era hats by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 14:24 · Score: 0

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compared to FLASH by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-04 14:32 · Score: 0

Damn!! $6.48 per gigabyte is so cheap that is closing in on the cost of FLASH memory. If DRAM ever fell below FLASH memory, that still wouldn't help us, though, cause DRAM requires power to retain it's memory state, unlike FLASH. It's still funny how RAM prices are getting SO close to secondary storage prices.