Why the prices?

B

BioInclined

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 23, 2011
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332
Simply out of curiosity, with all these sales and seeing people saying RAM is cheap right now and will be for a bit, what is causing this?
With other things like new cars you see price reductions on older models. Is there new RAM configurations coming out?
Thanks, if this thread is stupid, let it fall. :D
 
Prices tend to fall due to production numbers and whether or not the parts are mainstream. Ram generally hits a price valley as it's in use; DDR2 did the same thing. Now, DDR2 prices are somewhat going up, and out-of-demand products like DDR1 have increased considerably.

That's the general trend, anyway. When a new standard comes out, it will have a high price until it is considered standard, where the old standard will start to increase.

If that makes sense.
 
DDR3 is mainstream now, most factories moved over to producing it, thus it is cheaper.

and everything iroc409 said.
 
I get that concept, still seems a bit backwards to me. Hoping to sell A LOT and a lower cost rather than higher price and ensure covering production cost while demand is high.
I'm not complaining though. 16GB for $110:p
 
rive22 said:
That's funny DDR3 is finally considered mainstream? :eek:
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DDR3 has been mainstream for a while now. The nahelm and sandy bridge chips require it and lots of newer LGA775 and AMD systems use it too.
 
DDR3 already made a price drop like this awhile back. Prices right inline with what they are now. Then they shot up again, now back down.

Expect them to go back up :)
 
Get them while they're cheap. It was about a year ago I bought a 4GB kit (2x2GB) of DDR3 for $110... now you can get that for $30-$45...

I would say that maybe companies are getting ready to start making 8GB DIMMs more widespread, and they are clearing stock so they can jack the prices up again once the 8GB sticks hit the market... I've been noticing more and more newer Motherboards posting their RAM max as 32GB with 4 slots, I think that just started this year...

Anyway, unless you're waiting for the 8GB sticks, get it now...
 
S>D, cheaper to produce, newer tech, the same reasons any other product decreases in price. I do believe they've came close to hitting the bottom of the valley, and would purchase now if you need it.
 
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New stuff is coming out and places need to get rid of their older stock.

Clearly companies aren't going to drop prices while demand is high so one can approximate demand based on pricing trends.

On a sidenote: it baffles me that people buy dozens of unnecessary RAM and then start to use it for RAM drives when they can simply buy an SSD.
 
BioInclined said:
I get that concept, still seems a bit backwards to me. Hoping to sell A LOT and a lower cost rather than higher price and ensure covering production cost while demand is high.
I'm not complaining though. 16GB for $110:p
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Production costs probably dropped across the board a while back, and development costs have likely finally been recouped. So now memory manufacturers can finally openly compete with each other and are driving prices down.
 
I dig the lower prices, I got 16gb in one machine and 16gb in another, will I ever use all of it, no, probably not. My wife might since she likes to do a lot of photo editing and video editing. The memory market now has to compete for lower prices which is great news., still waiting for SSDs to catch up.
 
iroc409 said:
out-of-demand products like DDR1 have increased considerably.
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I wish, that might be true on those shady websites that are always the cheapest on pricewatch but look on ebay, DDR1 just doesn't sell, which sucks because I have a bunch of it.
 
May be the component to build a RAM new generation cheaper and easy to make old RAM
 
450 said:
I'm gonna stock up. Now.
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Either stock now for the current stuff before they stop making it because when the new RAM sticks enter the fray, it'll be higher than usual prices for a bit.
 
Yes, just have to time it right. Prices can't continue to fall forever but with some patience you can save a bundle for sure! I bought 4 gb of DDR3-1600 18months ago for something like $95 now the same set is $40 or $25 with rebate specials! Even though I knew prices were coming down, I had to buy for a new build...
 
ryan_975 said:
Yeah, because we all know DDR2 is super cheap now...oh wait... You can get 8GB of DDR3 for what 4GB of DDR2 or 2GB of DDR1 costs.
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Yep gotta love the prices right now. Wanted to get some DDR1 for the old rig.. but it just doesn't make sense at the retail prices.
 
BioInclined said:
Simply out of curiosity, with all these sales and seeing people saying RAM is cheap right now and will be for a bit, what is causing this?
Click to expand...

I think RAM prices have long been boosted by a form of speculation, from ever increasing demand. But, for the first time in history, I think demand is starting to level out. For example, every version of Windows always needed more RAM than the version before. But, with Windows 7, the need for RAM stayed pretty much the same as Vista before. And MS has said that Windows 8 will have lower RAM requirements than Windows 7. Not to mention that PC sales aren't growing like they use to.
 
Win 7 seems better with less memory than Vista..Vista needed 2Gb really one reason why at the time it got a thumping because most normal non premium pc's had erm 1Gb of ram.

I'm not complaining either I got 2 dual channel kits of 8Gb for less than half what I paid for 2Gb of premium DDR1 memory quite a few years back. Now there is no reason not to build a pc with 8Gb being bog standard..saying that 16Gb is overkill.

For DDR1 I just dig about at a local tip to get modules ;-) You'd be surprised how many folks just dump a pc with all the stuff in there.
 
Is it safe to say DDR4 ram will be here in a year or so?

Right now there really is no incentive to not get 8GB when it's so cheap even though I don't even need 8gb.
 
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