Samsung Slashing Graphics Memory Prices

[HardOCP News]

According to DigiTimes, Samsung is undercutting its competitors by offering drastically lower prices. While some people are worried that Samsung's move will trigger a free fall for graphics memory prices, consumers are all smiles.

The sources claim that Samsung 256Mb (16Mbx16) DDR2 is selling for only US$0.50. Other DRAM makers think that the price is unbelievably low, as typical costs for this type of DDR2 graphics memory chip, from the wafer to back-end production, would usually run about US$1.40.

 

[Fanu]

doesnt really matter

it will just mean ati/nvidia will get a bigger share in profits

graphic card prices will remain the same

like 3870 and 8800GT were suppoused to cost max 250$ and instead went for much higher prices on market..

 

[RoffleCopter]

doesnt really matter

it will just mean ati/nvidia will get a bigger share in profits

graphic card prices will remain the same

like 3870 and 8800GT were suppoused to cost max 250$ and instead went for much higher prices on market..

Not really sure how this whole thing works, but ATi and NVidia gave suggested retail values for their cards at $200-250. It's the people selling them that jack up the prices. AFAIK, it's retailers who get higher profit margins, but correct me if I'm wrong.

The article said that Samsung was dumping its inventory of DDR2 memory. Perhaps they're getting rid of it to move on to bigger better things?

 

[Oh4Sh0]

<3 samsung

 

[DiabloRojo]

doesnt really matter

it will just mean ati/nvidia will get a bigger share in profits

graphic card prices will remain the same

like 3870 and 8800GT were suppoused to cost max 250$ and instead went for much higher prices on market..

Don't be so sure about that.

You don't have to worry about competition between ATi and nVidia at this point because it's the eVGAs and the BFGs that select the ram for their cards, not the chip makers. Any extra headroom the manufacturers have, enabling them to drop a shelf price, should invariably be used to spurn a higher volume in sales over competitors. Ever hear of Wal-Mart? It's what they do best, and it's what Samsung is doing here.

The other up-side is that if the card makers have an expected decline in manufacturing costs for the next product cycle(s) then they just might plan ahead and drop prices now since it could take a bit of uncertainty out of future profitability.

But this is DDR2 we're talking about, so it would only be on the low-end cards for now...

 

[jmackay]

It costs them $1.40 for 256mb of DDR2... damn that is some crazy markup for what we pay in stores

 

[M'ichal]

$0.50?!? holy, that's cheaper than bread!

 

[Kaldskryke]

$0.50?!? holy, that's cheaper than bread!

How much does a gigabyte of bread cost?

 

[MV75]

How much does a gigabyte of bread cost?

$2 apparently.

There's no reason they can't make cards with 1gb of memory on them. I mean you're paying ~$100-150 for these ranges of ddr2 cards, what's $2 out of that? SFA is what it is. Damn card ripoffs. Even if it was $1.40 for 256mb, $5.60 is still nothing for 1gb.

Anyway, this looks to be the beginning of getting ddr3 down to ddr2 prices for video and desktop if they're just tossing all these chips out for cheap. .