Price Gap Between DDR3 and DDR4 Memory Almost Gone

[Sweepr]

Around a year ago DRAM manufacturers ended up pinning a lot of their hopes on DDR4 as a way to improve their profit margins. In the cutthroat and highly cyclical DRAM industry, the launch of DDR4-capable systems was seen as encouraging new sales while also serving as an opportunity to sell DRAM with higher margins, owing to the at the time substantial price premium over DDR3. Today however, the difference between prices of DDR3 and DDR4 memory is almost negligible and soon it will likely disappear entirely. What is even more important is that DRAM in general is getting cheaper, which is good for the end-user, but is not necessarily good for companies like Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix.

www.anandtech.com/show/10058/price-check-price-gap-between-ddr3-and-ddr4-memory-almost-gone

 

[happy medium]

I paid 148$ for my G.skill ddr4 3000 memory on Nov. 13,2015 , now its 85$ on sale at newegg.
That kinda makes me sick but I'm happy that the prices are falling.

 

[steve wilson]

I paid 148$ for my G.skill ddr4 3000 memory on Nov. 13,2015 , now its 85$ on sale at newegg.
That kinda makes me sick but I'm happy that the prices are falling.

This always happens with new tech. You pay a premium to be an early adopter.

 

[JimmiG]

Yeah, it happened with SDR -> DDR, DDR -> DDR2 and DDR2 -> DDR3 too. Nothing new here.

Probably a good idea to pick up that DDR3 RAM now if you plan on keeping your old system for a while. As production of DDR3 ramps down, prices will likely go up until DDR3 is much more expensive than DDR4.

 

[isekii]

Yeah, it happened with SDR -> DDR, DDR -> DDR2 and DDR2 -> DDR3 too. Nothing new here.

Probably a good idea to pick up that DDR3 RAM now if you plan on keeping your old system for a while. As production of DDR3 ramps down, prices will likely go up until DDR3 is much more expensive than DDR4.

yea i remember selling old ddr2 at insane prices when ddr3's were dirt cheap.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Yeah, it happened with SDR -> DDR, DDR -> DDR2 and DDR2 -> DDR3 too. Nothing new here.

Probably a good idea to pick up that DDR3 RAM now if you plan on keeping your old system for a while. As production of DDR3 ramps down, prices will likely go up until DDR3 is much more expensive than DDR4.

I'm not really sure that holds any longer. Such transition has never faced a situation where PC shipments are tanking and the average user has more RAM than they need in their PC for a loooong time. It's really hard to predict where prices will go next, though I expect both to rise as manufacturers dump fab capacity for LPDDR and flash.

 

[Sweepr]

That's good news for entry level Skylake Pentium/Celeron users too.

 

[RaistlinZ]

I paid $225 for my 16GB DDR4 when the tech was new. I'm sad now.

 

[nerp]

It is nice when prices fall. I'm up to 16GB in my box and I paid less than $80 total. Gobbling up DDR3 now to max out my laptops and older systems before prices increase.

Waiting for SSD prices to tank in the next year. I forsee replacing all my HDs with SSDs in the next 24 months.

 

[Aristotelian]

Prices fall over time - unsure why anyone would be 'sad' - is it that you hoped your product would hold its value longer over time? I don't know of many goods in the PC sphere that don't depreciate much over time.

 

[JimmiG]

I'm not really sure that holds any longer. Such transition has never faced a situation where PC shipments are tanking and the average user has more RAM than they need in their PC for a loooong time. It's really hard to predict where prices will go next, though I expect both to rise as manufacturers dump fab capacity for LPDDR and flash.

Well, people have always had more memory than they needed since the early 00's at least. There have only been a few times such as in the mid 00's (during the release of Vista) that memory was so expensive that people didn't really have enough. 128MB, 256MB, 512MB etc. have all been considered "more than enough" at one point.

However the declining PC sales might indeed become a factor. If manufacturers prioritize various mobile memory standards over big desktop RAM sticks, prices might plateau. However there are still plenty of desktop PCs being sold, so it's not exactly a niche market, at least not yet.

 

[AlienTech]

I noticed that when they say memory, now they mean NAND memory and not working memory which even in high end stuff is 2-4GB's.. Which in PC terms would be 32-64GB;s so I think sales of DDR will drop drastically even though there are more things using RAM these days. But Nand seems to be exploding and usage is exponential. Seems you can use many of the same facilities for Nand now. With RAM prices 8 times the price of Nand, prices can still drop a lot. Not like DRAM takes 8 times the real estate. There was a time when prices were only 4 times higher. Static RAM prices were much higher because they used a lot more real estate and were much faster and still is. When we start of see prices 2-4 times nand prices would be when we can say it wont drop much further..