The gluttonous system building gurus over at AVADirect just added a 48GB DDR3 RAM option to a handful of non-ECC setups, including two gaming machines, a recently launched silent PC, and a workstation system. Who in their right mind could possibly justify such a superfluous amount of system memory? The answer is not many, though it's nice to have the option, isn't it?
DRAM chip makers can quit singing the summertime blues, but only because autumn is right around the corner and not because prices and profits are up. There was a point when making memory chips was almost like printing money, at least before the market got turned on its head. Now things are at an all time low.
A bucket full of RAM is still nearly as cheap as a bucket full of filtered water, and that means the DRAM market is still in shambles. It's a tough business to make money in, unless you're Samsung, in which case you're so far ahead of the pack you can hardly hear the others complaining about how bad it is while reminiscing about the days when making memory chips was like printing money.
If 
Corsair's Vengeance LP line of DDR3 memory was made for big builds (with big cooling systems) stuffed into little cases; these low-profile kits clock in at an itty-bitty 1.03 inches, nearly half the height of most of the other memory out there. The newly available Corsair Special Edition Arctic White Vengeance Low Profile memory targets a couple other niches, too. It's still short, but the Low Profile White also runs at a scant 1.35V that Corsair claims makes it perfect for whisper-quiet PCs or builds suffering from low voltage constraints.
Like Jennifer's Lopez's marriage, DRAM manufacturers are going through a bit of a rough patch. DRAM insiders were popping Cristal when the industry saw a 77 percent surge in revenues between 2009 and 2010, but thanks to a dramatic death-spiral in DRAM prices, those same executives could soon be snuggling up to Wall Street bankers and MD 20/20 in the gutter. Today, a report surfaced that indicates that things could get worse before they get better for DRAM manufacturers; some experts theorize that PC owners may shift away from DRAM into the open arms of NAND flash memory.
Here's a reality check for anyone who's complained about the price of RAM recently. The year was 2006 and I was wrapping up a review of a Kingston HyperX 1GB DDR2-1066 kit for another publication. I looked up the street price and found it was $250, which at the time was on the high side of normal for a 1GB kit at that frequency. A 2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 kit was selling for $400 that same year. Back then, it wasn't cheap being a PC balla. And today? You can pick up an 8GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600 kit for $65 shipped. Times have changed, and for DRAM makers, it hasn't been for the better. That's why they're considering production cuts.
Samsung today announced the introduction of 30nm-class DDR3 DRAM modules for PC upgrades, and if you're to take the company at its word, these new modules are all that and a bag of fat free chips with all the flavor of regular chips. More specifically, Samsung promises that this new generation of memory is faster and more energy efficient, claims you'll be able to put the test when the parts ship through consumer and retail channels later this summer.
We're pretty sure no jobs exist for 'Door-to-Door DRAM Salesman,' but if you should see such an opening in the classifieds section of Craigslist, don't bother applying. The DRAM market is in a sorry state, profit margins are thin, and things don't appear to be improving with time. Case in point, A-DATA Chairman Simon Chen said the DRAM market is the worst it's been in 15 years, and that was 
DRAM makers haven't had much to celebrate in a long time, and as profits took a nose dive, some wondered if they'd be better off bailing on the PC RAM industry, as 
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