VOTE, it's your duty as an American. RAM prices!!

[MasterHoss]

Hey guys, is it just me or are RAM prices on their way back sky-ward?

I guess the surplus on the chips is gone??? Do you think......

1.) prices going up
2.) stabilizing at their current levels
3.) temporarily going up, then coming back down

 

[MasterHoss]

no comments?

 

[Boogak]

Crucial.com's pc2100 DDR has been holding steady at $35.99 for a few weeks now.

 

[MasterHoss]

Yeah but wasn't it as low as $30 or $29 or something??

 

[Blayze]

I hope that the current prices hold or better yet go down.

I hope they don't skyrocket like they did a few years ago. over 100 dollars for 128 megs of ram would not be good

 

[antness]

i hope RAM prices go way up and i know when tehy're going to go up so i can buy lots of ram then sell it...woohoo

 

[MasterHoss]

hahaha--hmm (rubbing my chin). Not a bad idea. Just like the stock market, huh?

EDIT: uh-oh...we have a tie so far...

 

[Boogak]

Nah, it's been $35.99 for a while. If you count the 15% coupon and rebate, then it's like $30 something, but never as low as in the 20s. It's been holding steady at $35.99 as the lowest regular price for a while now, I know... I've been waiting for another price drop

 

[AndyHui]

I'm not American. I'm not going to vote.

 

[MasterHoss]

cool, I just want to .... hmm, anyone that sees the first increase in price--definately shout it outto everyone. I'm still debating whether I should go nForce + Palamino or Northwood with RDRAM and some Intel chipset. But in any case, I'd like to know what the DDR prices are doing.

 

[Degenerate]

its not rising much at all. Its cheap and a rise of $5 is bogus.

 

[MichaelD]

I purchased 512mb of Crucial PC2100 right after the last price drop. With shipping and tax, I paid $81.54 total. Not bad for 512megs of the some of the best stuff out there. PC component manufacturers have us by the short hairs and they know it. Right now, supply exceeds demand, so in order to move product they make less of a profit. I can remember 128mb of PC100 costing around $100...don't want to go there again. Sometimes, a particular CPU maker will get in bed w/a memory maker (Can U say INTEL and RAMBUS doing the nasty?) and screw the public big-time.

By the time I build my DDR rig (January, or when a KT266A mobo that is rock stable in AT's test comes out) PC2400 will prolly be the standard, but that's OK. At that point, PC2100 will be the KT133A chipset of today; middle of the road. I'm fine with that.

 

[Maverick]

the only thing that will drive the price back up is if the demand goes up.
right now ram isn't in very high demand since most people are content with 128-256.

Its very rare for the same computer product to become more expensive. This of course excludes retailers slashing prices due to inventory or other factors. I'm speaking from a strictly manufacturer/OEM point of view.

My prediction? DDR will remain at a cheap price. When PC2400 DDR comes out you won't see a big price difference...$15 at the most. DDR333 will raise the bar quite a bit, but you won't see a price more than $100 for 256MB. The main reason is that while the ram is faster and uses a faster FSB, to most users 512 of PC2100/2400 will perform better than 256 of DDR333.

The real thing that will drive the prices sky high will be a change in manufacturing or a completely different ram design (Rambus is an example). As far as manufacturing goes, DDR is not all that different from SDR. Until some new ram with a special manufacturing process comes out, the prices will stay fairly low.

This is all speculation so don't flame me if you spent years in college studying economics and feel the urge to make me look stupid

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Read up on MRAM..IBM's working on it. It will be faster and cheaper and retains its contents without power. Can you say...instant boot?????

 

[SnowPunk98]

I will say its gonna go down but who am I to say lol

 

[Finality]

I hope it keeps going down but I doubt it. I remember reading an article stating that current SDRAM prices will rise once more manufacturers move there facilities over to DDR/RDRAM ot even both. Either way current SDRAM prices will continue to rise if not now in the next 6 months.

Dont forget the Christmas sales season is approaching and its a strong likelhood that OEMs have started to stockpile ram to meet the future demand.