The dirty little secret about DRAM is that we're all underpaying for computer memory, and most of us know it. When the DRAM bubble burst, prices plummeted faster than Lindsay Lohan's career, which is why OCZ moved away from selling memory and starting hawking solid state drives, a segment that's overpriced just like DRAM used to be. It's starting to look like the DRAM market might never regain it's swagger from a decade ago, but there are still times when you should consider stocking up on memory. This might be one of them.

Technology giants Intel and Micron hammered out revised agreements to expand their NAND Flash memory joint venture relationship, the two companies announced this week. As part of the agreements, Micron will buy back Intel's stake in two wafer fabrication plants for $600 million, half of which will be paid in cash and the rest deposited with Micron to be refunded or applied to Intel's future purchases.

It was over three years ago when Adata chairman Simon Chen frustratingly noted that 2008 was the worst year for DRAM in the past 15 years, and not much has changed since then. Memory chip makers have tried a number of different strategies since then, from consolidation to, more recently, choking supply in hopes of stopping free-falling prices. Now we're hearing DRAM production is about to kick up a notch.

At a time when hard drive prices are up, motherboard prices might be going up, and solid state drives (SSDs) are still comparatively expensive (per gigabyte), the DRAM market may have finally bottomed out. That's the feeling from Micron president Mark Adams, who heads the only U.S.-based DRAM maker still in existence. According to Adams, DRAM prices have finally hit rock bottom.