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It's been a wild downward ride in the memory market these past twelve or so months, one in which DRAM makers are more than eager reverse course. And that's exactly what's happening. According to data gathered by DRAMeXchange, DRAM contract prices have climbed in the second half of April. The data shows that prices of 1GB DDR2-667 DIMMs has gone up $9 and 2GB DDR2 $18, representing a 6 to 11 percent gain.
And this is just the beginning, says DRAMeXchange. Citing un-named market sources, the firm says Elpida Memory will most likely discontinue shipments to the spot market, while both Powerchip Semiconductor Corporation (PSC) and Kingston also plan to limit their shipments, at least until June. This could prove to be significant, as Elpida and PSC account for almost 60 percent of the sport market. Elpida's goal is to raise quotes by as much as 50 percent.
But before you panic and stock up on all the RAM you can afford, DRAMeXchange predicts DRAM spot prices will only increase to a range of $1.20 to $1.50, up from $1 to $1.20. This means DDR2 modules will probably go up, but not by as much as Elpida (and other DRAM makers) are hoping.
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NAYRhyno
April 22, 2009 at 12:32pm
The change in DDR2 price is also likely because of the increased popularity of DDR3. With both AMD and Intel using DDR3 in their flagship platforms, it seems like there will be continually decreased demand for DDR2, and thus an increase in price.
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PhelanPKell
April 22, 2009 at 11:25am
Glad I bought my 12gb's a short while ago, before this started to happen. oO
mlee19
April 22, 2009 at 12:52pm
im assuming yer using the core i7 platform. 12 gb is a waste and limits yer bandwidth. Only if you run many VMs is it worth runnung 12gb.
NAYRhyno
April 22, 2009 at 1:36pm
If you have a tri-channel x58 with 6 slots (the most common way to have 12GB), 2 slots per channel, how does it limit your bandwidth?
Word on the street is, with Vista/Win 7 caching things to RAM, the increased RAM really helps limit the effects HDD bottleneck.
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mlee19
April 22, 2009 at 7:19pm
Do you not pay attention to anything about the core i7 platform?? According to intels specs, occupying more than three slots will limit your bandwidth. They recomend to run more than that only for those that need all that ram. It has even been stated in this mag.
the_moo
April 22, 2009 at 7:42pm
Any link from intel to see that? Point being, any time you move apps from running off your disk to the memory the gain is substantial. I did a little searching but the only thing I could find was this: http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews.php?/memory/3gb_6gb_or_12gb_investigated/1
