Memory prices?

[Gunslinger08]

I know this is the wrong place for this post, but I couldn't really think of where to put it..

What is up with memory prices? Crucial 256mb pc2100 sticks have gone up $15+ in the past 2 weeks! Somebody lose a huge shipment of ram or something?

Josh

 

[NelsonMuntz]

There was a lawsuit that got settled recently having to do with one of the RAM manufacturers because they were not paying licensing fees or something and this company lost the battle and is having to remove themselves from the market and they were the major driving force sending the prices down, so now the prices are going back up.

 

[chizow]

Read a technews article about it. Basically, over the last year or so, RAM makers (the big guys) have either reduced the amount of SDRAM produced in their fabs or discontinued production altogether. In the last few months, the 3rd party module makers have been buying up all the SDRAM in anticipation of the increased demand for memory during the holiday buying season. For the last few months, industry analysts had said supply was basically meeting demand, however, due to this increased demand during the holiday season, demand has exceeded the amount supplied and exhausted all surpluses (as they have been snatched up). Considering memory makers don't plan on increasing their SDRAM chip production, I don't think memory prices are gonna go down to their previous levels any time soon. Heck, Crucial DDR is now about 2x as much as it was just 3 weeks ago.

Chiz

 

[Jhhnn]

I think the terms you're looking for are "hoarding" and "gouging", primarily by middlemen. The demand is up because of the holidays, but I suspect that the price will go back down after the first of the year, at least somewhat, unless the demand for pc's starts jumping up radically.

Prices still aren't bad at all, not compared to the reaming administered after the Taiwan earthquake.... It's a volatile market, rife with speculation, most of it outside the control of the SEC.