A DIMM Future for RAM Bundles 344
VeggiePossum23 writes "PC WORLD has an article about rising concerns that computer manufacturers will be cutting the amount of bundled RAM they sell with their PCs owing to rising prices of dynamic memory. The article claims that spot pricing shows a rise of almost $15.00 for 256MB modules of DDR DRAM in some markets. According to a Reuters article on ZDNet, the price rises are caused by shortage of memory chips, and this is causing the prices of memory to raise at the fastest rate in four years. Even Intel is said to be worried at the overall trend of price hikes for all types of memory. The Inquirer has a similiar article from a couple of weeks ago which includes a chart showing how the third-party memory manufacturers are doing. Kingston tops the chart for revenue."
That's a bummer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That's a bummer (Score:4, Interesting)
Tell me about it. I have a machine at home that has what was (at the time) a $700 16MB SIMM.
At the time I thought it was a good deal and it made X on my Linux box so much more useable.
That's nothing (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually it may have even been to 12K!
Re:That's a bummer (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't all that long ago it would cost several times more to max our your RAM than it did to purchase the computer. Buy a $3k computer, put in $5-10k RAM (and drop another couple grand on a 20 MB hard drive).
Re:That's a bummer (Score:4, Informative)
Now a quad Opteron box....
Re:That's a bummer (Score:3, Insightful)
Ummm, this isn't an Apple fanboy site. Hell, this isn't even apple.slashdot.org. So it's not really the place to boast you paid more for Apple branded upgrade components.
You're clearly not a very bright boy. I'm poking fun at people who pay crap loads for their systems, Mac or PC. Get it now?
Re:That's a bummer (Score:4, Informative)
Re:That's a bummer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:That's a bummer (Score:2)
Re:That's a bummer (Score:4, Informative)
That wasn't a "language card", although it was installed in the "language card" slot. The Apple Language Card had a ROM chip on it that contained the version of BASIC that wasn't installed in your machine by default. This was so that you could run Applesoft BASIC programs on an Apple II or Integer BASIC programs on an Apple II+ at the flip of a switch. What you got was a RAM expansion card.
why more ram anyway? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:5, Interesting)
if programming and programmers tried to make their code smaller, while avoiding pitfalls like 600MB installs (re q3,halflife etc.) wouldn't the games be more popular?
heck, even office 2003 full install is almost a gig. ONE FREAKING GIGABYTE!!!
Tell me why you need a 300 meg install for a word processor, spell-check feature and some rtf formatting? anyone?
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:2)
Call me crazy, but I can assure you that the price of keeping current with video cards outweighs RAM requirements by an order of magnitude or more. Unless there are games I've never heard of that still play just fine with my Geforce 2, but need 2 gigs of RAM. Hey, you never know...
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:2)
I have no doubt that they would be more desireable. I do doubt they would sell more because games would cost more. Making the code smaller costs money, which would translate into higher prices and lower demand. It might even be the case that game manufacturers would make less money as any increased profit due to higher prices would be
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
Compare UT2004:
Executable file: under 2 megabytes /System directory (exe, settings, mutators): 56MB
/Sounds (voice, announcer, shots, ambients): 353MB
/Maps: 1550MB
/Textures: 2790MB
Entire
The whole thing is just going in a viscious cycle - the better game engines we have, the more video card power we need. The better the video card, the higher resolution we can run it in and keep it playable. The more resolution, the higher quality graphics we need on screen. The higher quality the graphics, the more space they take up. Textures alone take up half of the UT2004 install footprint. If you want to start reducing install sizes, start on the graphics quality first.
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:2)
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:2)
A FPS is not a browser. We need new features constantly or its the same game as the last 10. Push the limits. What do you think has driven the hardware boom of the
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:why more ram anyway? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes I'm kidding.
Quick - how can we blame George W. Bush? (Score:5, Funny)
That'll do. Another Slashdot truth is created.
Effects of Price Changes (Score:5, Insightful)
Where it will hurt people is the technologically illiterate, who simply take the default Dell configuration or whatever and then wonder why their systems are always low on RAM.
Re:Effects of Price Changes (Score:3, Interesting)
If people think they actually need the 512mb rather than 256mb, then they'll pay the extra $40 or whatever for the ability to run their favorite games without closing some other programs.
Re:Effects of Price Changes (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Effects of Price Changes (Score:2)
I did probably cost Dell a sale, though -- she was all ready to buy a new computer because hers was "too slow"...
Re:Effects of Price Changes (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Effects of Price Changes (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, almost everyone buying computers.
Re:Effects of Price Changes (Score:4, Interesting)
Too bad i have no mod points today, that is insightful, sadly true, yet insightful.
Reminds me of when a recent employer asked why their computer was so slow. I took a look it. Pretty generic xp1400 running windows XP with 128MB ram. However the poor thing was diving into swap like an anorexic teen into a fruit smoothy. I added another 128mb and it ran great (well for a crummy computer running multiple insantces of bonzai buddy). For them though it was a night and day difference and they had no clue what the prolbem was.
Moral of the story: Anorexic teen girls love fruit smoothies. Especially "real" fruit smoothies.
(and xp eats ram?)
Re:Effects of Price Changes (Score:3, Insightful)
I have the feeling there's a plumber, electrician, car mechanic, lawyer, accountant, or other skilled professional out there who says the same thing about you.
Even worse (Score:2)
Switching over (Score:5, Insightful)
So yea, be prepared to pay higher prices for gas, milk (and associated dairy products like ice cream), meat, RAM and who knows what else this year.
Oh crap. Not again. (Score:5, Funny)
RAM prices are like oil prices, they have nothing to do with supply and demand but instead, are controlled by some secret or not so secret cartel.
Re:Oh crap. Not again. (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a fairly high alignment of revenue among the companies.
Any economics people want to interpret that for me?
Re:Oh crap. Not again. (Score:2)
Almost like a Cartel or trust eh? Funny.
Re:Oh crap. Not again. (Score:3, Informative)
You mean like that ratio of 1 person out 100 people is 1%?
Considering dollars are what they are using to establish market share, it makes absolute sense. :)
Re:Oh crap. Not again. (Score:2)
Oh, the punishment! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh, the punishment! (Score:3, Funny)
Farmer Brown: "Those sheep lie."
How come toasters are so cheap? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then again I didn't read the article either
Re:How come toasters are so cheap? (Score:2)
Re:How come toasters are so cheap? (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly, there have been some valid reasons for the memory problems including the buying cycle effecting demand, and the changeover to DDR2 effecting supply. These are real world variables that can be tracked and documented with evidence. For an incredibly complex unit like a RAM module and
Re:How come toasters are so cheap? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How come toasters are so cheap? (Score:5, Insightful)
Toaster factories don't cost 2E9+ USD (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How come toasters are so cheap? (Score:5, Insightful)
Setup cost for a toaster factory would be minimal compared to chip fabs, and there are no doubt more toaster factories out there. When one toaster factory burns down (as some big chip fab did not to long ago, IIRC) its more easily replaced, and doubtless has minimal impact on the worlds toaster resources.
Plus the demand for toasters is pretty constant. People buy toasters when their old one breaks. They dont rush out to buy a 5% faster "upgraded" toaster just because it's there.
With computer tech there'll be a big rush to a tech, it'll get cheap as it reigns supreme, then get pricier as the industry moves away from it. It happened to EDO, FPDRAM, SDRAM, and now DDR as makers want to move quickly into the more lucrative DDR2 market. You can see the same trend with CPUs and other chipsets.
Re:How come toasters are so cheap? (Score:3, Funny)
Obviously your toaster doesn't run and depend on Java...
Re:How come toasters are so cheap? (Score:2)
Not just DDR (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not just DDR (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not just DDR (Score:2, Informative)
Also, the demand for SDRAM, an almost obselete component, will likely fall, which very much increses the risk that SDRAM prices will fall, and fall much further than they would have otherwise because of this pricing bubble that they are involved in now.
The interesting thing about computer components is the general pricing curve when you look at it over a very long term, like 10 years. Initial
Re:Not just DDR (Score:2)
Didn't they say this when... (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember all the talking heads saying RAM prices would be exhorbinate for YEARS to come.
Supply problems are short-lived, really.
Re:Didn't they say this when... (Score:2, Informative)
Bundled RAM too pricey anyway... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bundled RAM too pricey anyway... (Score:3, Informative)
I have had a hell of a time with memory on a dual Xeon server I built recently; I know I wouldn't want to be mixing modules from different manufacturers on it!
DAMME shame, that (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously though, it's been nice for the flash market, which is where the manufacturers are shifting capacity. Prices there have dropped nicely. If both markets continue to do well, more capacity will come online, and prices will drop again across the board until manufacturers start ramping up DDR2 capacity at the expense of DDR1 (as has happened to PC133).
Normal fluctuations in the RAM market - nothing to see here.
Maybe this is a good thing! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Maybe this is a good thing! (Score:2)
Re:Maybe this is a good thing! (Score:3, Informative)
When top shows Gaim et al using 40+ meg of RAM, it's including shared libraries with it, too. You're also kind of overblowing your numbers: top is telling me that GAIM is only using 4mb of non-shared RAM (14mb including shared), which I don't think is exorbitant. Mozilla on the front page of CNN.com uses 32-19=13 meg of RAM. Tweak your caching if you find that it's using > 50mb, I suppose.
In short, top is slig
Re:Maybe this is a good thing! (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, but if no other program you are running is using those same shared libraries, then your program is indeed using all that memory by itself.
GAIM depends on GTK2 now, which is pushing resource usage up and up.
Production cuts? (Score:2)
The wide price swings... (Score:5, Insightful)
Adding to this now is a fairly major transition from 200-300mm wafers. No matter what the DRAM companies tell you, they're never as good with their process as they claim they are. (I used to work for one of them.) Everyone is struggling to some degree with 0.11 micron compared to 0.13, and everyone (except perhaps Infineon, who started with it about three years ago) is struggling with 300mm wafer technology compared to 200mm.
Add it all up, and it very likely is a legitimate shortage. No price fixing here.
Re:The wide price swings... (Score:3, Informative)
The chips made on the wafer don't get bigger--they're the same size or smaller. The advantage is that you get more than twice as many chips on a wafer. Time spent on each machine in the fab is money--if you can patte
Collusion, Collapse! (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Brokers sell stocks of Ram mfgs on promise of increased profits
3. Collusion breaks down as mfgs increase production to take advantage of better margins
4. Prices go even lower
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Still cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Still cheap (Score:2, Interesting)
There are a ton of legitimate reasons to have a ton of RAM in a machine, and only about half can be written off as luxury items.
When the price of a workstation for my CAD users rises by 10% due to RAM jumps, it's a real concern and I can't tell them to play less games or ask for less RAM hungry apps. When you're configuring machines with 2GB of RAM in them. this sort of incremental price jump hurts.
Using 256MB RAM (Score:5, Funny)
You have obviously never run any Java applications. Here's how to use up the first 128 MB:
}Re:Still cheap (Score:2)
Video games belong on consoles.
This is even worse news for AMD (Score:3, Insightful)
They've gotten so pricey (Score:3, Funny)
RAM Price Increases (Score:5, Funny)
Re:RAM Price Increases (Score:2, Interesting)
Again and again (Score:2, Insightful)
Kingston (Score:2)
It also topos the chart for crappy product.
I've either had really bad luck in buying Kingston RAM, or Kingston's product is crap. I've built close to a dozen new systems in the last five years, and I used to be in the habit of buying the least expensive RAM that met the requirements for the architecture. That usually meant Kingston. Over a third of these systems had instability issues that I was able to directly attribute to bad RAM.
I never had a problem exchan
Re:Kingston (Score:3, Interesting)
Also you don't save much dropping in speed from PC2700 to PC2100, unless you are looking for the drams over 512mb.
Re:Kingston (Score:2)
Dimmit there go our strategic DRAM reserves! (Score:5, Funny)
Won't someone please think of the scorpions!
We need to break this country of it's dependence on foreign DRAM once and for all.
Mother/CPU cheaper (Score:2)
No magazine has integrity. (Score:5, Interesting)
Be careful. Several times in the past publicity agents have placed stories like this in national magazines just before big price drops.
Everything in the magazines now is for sale. No magazine of which I am aware has any integrity.
Here's a quote from the Reuters article on ZDNet:
"We believe the tight supply situation will continue for the time being on delays by rivals in a move to shrink circuitry" to 110 nanometers, said a semiconductor trader at Samsung.
Notice the 100% conflict of interest.
After the Taiwan earthquake the rise in prices was very fleeting, due to the hype by publicity agents, and not any real lack of supply. The did the same scam concerning VCR heads, saying the lack of supply would make VCRs go up in price. Instead, the price dropped sharply.
No big deal for OEM marketing (Score:4, Funny)
Before higher RAM costs
QAPMOC_PH 5500: 256 MB RAM
QAPMOC_PH 6200: 131,072 kB RAM
Best Buy Sales droid:"Yes, the new 6200 has more RAM than the 5500 model."
I know years ago on at least this one model of notebook Toshiba listed the 3 gb hardrive as "3,000,000 megabytes".
Buy slower memory (Score:5, Insightful)
If I have to choose between 512MB of Dual Channel RAM and 1GB of Single Channel for my PC, I'd pick 1GB. Choice is easy.
Like gas? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh no (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Finally... (Score:3, Funny)
So that no one misses the pun. (No pun intended
Re:Finally... (Score:2)
Re:The other reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stopped Dumping (Score:5, Funny)
So, who would that be? China and . . . China?
Re:Stopped Dumping (Score:2, Funny)
You forgot China as well.
Re:Stopped Dumping (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, I panicked.
Re:Stopped Dumping (Score:4, Informative)
Well... there's the "People's Republic of China", and the "Republic of China" [gio.gov.tw], two completely different countries (well, in the eyes of the PROC, the ROC is a breakaway republic, sort of like how Saddam viewed Kuwait). So, "Chinese countries" would be technically correct--and that's the best kind of correct!
Also, the ROC (aka Taiwan) is the source of much of the world's RAM, so the original poster's comment has some validity.
M-
Re:Stopped Dumping (Score:2, Interesting)
China's influence in the market can. Recently there is a big internatonal trade row over their price gouging suppored by fiddling with tariffs, tax breaks and their dollar pledged curr
Re:Stopped Dumping (Score:2)
Just checking, dumping is bad when other countries do it to the US, but it's OK when the US does it to other countries [ga0.org]?
Re:I read something a few months ago (Score:2)
big plants in asia where dimm chips are made
Um, wasn't that ten or eleven YEARS ago? The fire at the resin plant in Japan that caused memory prices to shoot up (the resin is something used in the manufacture of memory chips)...
Re:But... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But... (Score:3, Interesting)
[Really long blockquote deleted, just read the article, every line is a hoot]
[Ok, one blockquote]
Indeed (Score:2)