What happened to DDR3 prices?

DRAM prices are going to be rising for the next few years. Global demand is seeing a steady upturn and supply appears to be being kept artificially low.

The DRAM market is notorious for manufacturer collusion and I'm afraid it's going to happen again. There's a point where manufacturers working together can collectively make more money by slowing production slightly. This allows price increases outpace supply hikes (price fixing in a nutshell). It's happened time and again with these companies and as long as the wrist slap anti-trust fines they get charged are smaller than the profits they rake in, we will continue to see this kind of thing.

It's worth noting that despite the best efforts of manufacturers the bottom really fell out of the DRAM market in '07 right as the economy tanked around the world. Prices nose-dived to levels we may never see again. I'd say now is the time to buy if you're looking for a memory upgrade because its not going to get cheaper any time soon.
 
This is a lame time for this to happen, I wanted to get to 4 GB before upgrading to 7.

What's worse was I was ready to buy when a 4GB kit was around $45 and I was waiting for $40. Instead, the price climbed to $50, then $60, and now $90.
 
yeah right. Its BS. I was just about to build my cousin a system but this is killing budget, which was very tight to begin with. I wanted a min 4gig but may have to get 2g.
 
Jerec said:
This is a lame time for this to happen, I wanted to get to 4 GB before upgrading to 7.

What's worse was I was ready to buy when a 4GB kit was around $45 and I was waiting for $40. Instead, the price climbed to $50, then $60, and now $90.
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I wanted to do the same for a secondary rig. I walked out of Microcenter with nothing because I refuse to pay those jacked up prices. I'll keep looking in [H] and wait since it is a secondary rig that really does not do anything...

I paid $45 for a 2 x 2GB Gskill DDR2-1066 RAM in April. I got 2 kits. I went to buy more of that RAM again and it was $90 for one kit. Screw that, lol.
 
i bought my 4gig of ocz reaper ram for $36 shipped after rebate now it cost $90.99 after rebate. I was like WTF
 
I remember a few months ago I was going to get a 4gb dominator kit (DDR2) for around $35 AR, but I didn't think I needed 8GB, and now I want a second rig and the same kit is $140 AR...ridiculous
 
Hamish Campbell said:
DRAM prices are going to be rising for the next few years. Global demand is seeing a steady upturn and supply appears to be being kept artificially low.

The DRAM market is notorious for manufacturer collusion and I'm afraid it's going to happen again. There's a point where manufacturers working together can collectively make more money by slowing production slightly. This allows price increases outpace supply hikes (price fixing in a nutshell). It's happened time and again with these companies and as long as the wrist slap anti-trust fines they get charged are smaller than the profits they rake in, we will continue to see this kind of thing.

It's worth noting that despite the best efforts of manufacturers the bottom really fell out of the DRAM market in '07 right as the economy tanked around the world. Prices nose-dived to levels we may never see again. I'd say now is the time to buy if you're looking for a memory upgrade because its not going to get cheaper any time soon.
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Was going to post similar :)
I smell another price fixing scandal but it takes years to punish them, by which time they have made far more money than they will ever get fined and we dont see the benefits of the fines anyway - and its happening again!
 
Heh, I was curious about it too. I've been in this game for a while now, probably a little over 10 years. I remember back in I think a little after 2000 or so when ram prices were really low and then just suddenly jumped up. But I recall it was due to the earthquakes in Taiwan that destroyed a lot of the facilities thus creating a shortage of memory.

And then I remember receiving this notice about Crucial being sued via a class action suit and that I was eligible for some type of settlement. I never got anything out of it but I recall that they were sued due to the fixing of memory prices.

It's just a cyclic type of event I guess. I was worried this would happen again. I started seeing DDR2 prices at extremely low prices and thought man I wonder if prices are going to go up again soon.

I think I even bought up a 2GB Ballstix DDR2 set about two years ago due to the cost being so low and I really had no use for it, just because it was so cheap I figured I'd buy it now for later. I don't even know what I did with that kit.
 
amazon3d said:
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Dude this wanks. Next month it will be $150 for the same thing. I guess more memory is a thing of the past. Should have bought 12 sets....

.
 
yeah, I've been buying used in the forums mostly. Even if I don't need it, it still pays to get used memory for $60 compared to new for $100. I'm sure I'll find a use for it in the next couple weeks ;).
 
yeah the price of ddr2 is crazy now. i should have stocked up last year!
 
OB1ie said:
yeah the price of ddr2 is crazy now. i should have stocked up last year!
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No kidding. I just built two computers and had to split a 4gb kit up between the two. About two months ago I could of just bought 4gb for each at the same price.
 
Smashed Ixnay said:
No kidding. I just built two computers and had to split a 4gb kit up between the two. About two months ago I could of just bought 4gb for each at the same price.
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Thats going to blow if one of the sticks crap out. You will then need to RMA both sticks meaning you will be out of two computers.
 
I should have invested in DDR2 when it was cheap if I need the economy was going to hit the memory sector this hard.

I could have made some profit by now..
 
I think DDR3 prices just crept up another $10 (at least on Newegg) these past few days.
 
I think DDR2 just creep up $20 more!

The lowest DDR2-800 2x2GB kit is $82 + shipping!

This is getting ridiculous!
 
Maybe ram prices are catching up with the exchange rate.
Its $1.67 to £1 today, it cant be faring too well against the East.
 
Probably something to do with the manufacturing process for RAM chips and the capacity of the plants.
 
Well compared to a year ago, now we have all the mainstream Intel and AMD cpu's using DDR3. Also, as ddr2 prices jumped big time, its almost the same price or more expensive go to ddr2 over ddr3.

So yes, much more demand for ddr3 in the last few months.
 
Man I kinda wish i would have gotten 12GB back when i built this thing. I can't even find the regular PI series anymore, just the PI black kits, which are waay to expensive to even think about.
 
Damn just5 checked RAM prices for the first time since I built my x58 system in Feb. 2009. I think I paid 170.00US for 12GB OCZ Gold DDR3. Can't believe it.

I read that one major reason is that Win 7 has a great affect on DDR3 and RAM prices because everyone wants to take advantage of more than 4GB of memory that 32 bit systems were confined to. Since Vista was a flop, and Win 7 isn't, now everyone is moving to more RAM. Hence, tons more demand.
 
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