What happened to DDR3 prices?

abbotsmike · 17 Mar 2015 at 01:04

I built my current machine in Nov' 2011. Still going fine, had a few little improvements over time. Using lightroom quite heavily now as I've gotten more into my photography, along with a couple of filter plug ins. I'm now finding that I'm running out of RAM fairly often. I have 8GB currently.

Paid <£40 for 8GB of corsair vengeance in 2011, now the same kit is ~£55! Is this across the board or just the specific kit I have?

pooley · 17 Mar 2015 at 01:24

It across the board, ram prices rise and fall all the time..

valkynaz · 17 Mar 2015 at 02:06

Over the past couple of years a few things have happened. A big supplier of memory chips called Elpida went bankrupt and there was also a major fire at a Hynix production plant in China. Supply has gone down while demand has remained the same/risen.

Manufacturers are always fast to jack up the prices when a crisis hits but slow to (or not willing to) reduce the prices when production/manufacturing costs recover to their original levels. It was the same with hard drives/petrol.

Sayso · 17 Mar 2015 at 05:22

Not a bad time to buy DDR3 but i can see the prices dropping a bit more (then rising a lot) until DDR4 becomes mainstream.
I got a 16Gb kit for £30ish when they hit rock bottom last time.

abbotsmike · 17 Mar 2015 at 07:26

valkynaz said:
Over the past couple of years a few things have happened. A big supplier of memory chips called Elpida went bankrupt and there was also a major fire at a Hynix production plant in China. Supply has gone down while demand has remained the same/risen.

Manufacturers are always fast to jack up the prices when a crisis hits but slow to (or not willing to) reduce the prices when production/manufacturing costs recover to their original levels. It was the same with hard drives/petrol.

I wondered if it might have been something like that. Same as when all the HDD factories in thailand flooded really.

Doogles · 17 Mar 2015 at 09:29

Sayso said:
Not a bad time to buy DDR3 but i can see the prices dropping a bit more (then rising a lot) until DDR4 becomes mainstream.
I got a 16Gb kit for £30ish when they hit rock bottom last time.

Lucky buggar, I've spent £55 on my first 2x4GB 1600mhz kit 3 years ago and another £50 on a 2x4GB 1866mhz kit about a month ago

Frozennova · 17 Mar 2015 at 11:18

Its not a cheap as it was but I'd hardly consider it expensive.

I remember paying £90 for 2x2GB 1333MHZ Geil Value

Quartz · 17 Mar 2015 at 11:21

I remember paying over £100 for 16 MB in 1990 or so.

David Bisset · 17 Mar 2015 at 13:11

RAM prices right now are pretty good, they've fallen a lot in the last few months. Not better than in late 2011, sure, but in the same ballpark at least again!

Kelt · 17 Mar 2015 at 15:17

abbotsmike said:
I built my current machine in Nov' 2011. Still going fine, had a few little improvements over time. Using lightroom quite heavily now as I've gotten more into my photography, along with a couple of filter plug ins. I'm now finding that I'm running out of RAM fairly often. I have 8GB currently.

Paid <£40 for 8GB of corsair vengeance in 2011, now the same kit is ~£55! Is this across the board or just the specific kit I have?

Think yourself lucky.

First PC I built, ram was £30 per MB!

Yeh, per MB!!!

zola25 · 18 Mar 2015 at 15:16

Thankfully I never paid £30 per Mb, but I did purchase 16Mb of EDO ram for ~ £80 in the mid 90's.

Imagine £30 per Mb now, 8Gb would cost more than a 3 bed semi :eek:

BSmith · 18 Mar 2015 at 16:04

There was a fire destroying a major memory manufactoring complex in China a few years ago, caused a shortage.

paulo7 · 18 Mar 2015 at 16:54

when will be the best time

kmetek · 18 Mar 2015 at 18:25

you're lucky you're not paying in €...€ is in downfall last months.

Gibbo · 18 Mar 2015 at 19:14

abbotsmike said:
I built my current machine in Nov' 2011. Still going fine, had a few little improvements over time. Using lightroom quite heavily now as I've gotten more into my photography, along with a couple of filter plug ins. I'm now finding that I'm running out of RAM fairly often. I have 8GB currently.

Paid <£40 for 8GB of corsair vengeance in 2011, now the same kit is ~£55! Is this across the board or just the specific kit I have?

You should be glad you did not look in January, same kits were around £80

Buy TeamGroup of Avexir, same quality, better looking and for less money, 8GB kits from £44 at OcUK.

abbotsmike · 18 Mar 2015 at 20:18

Gibbo said:
You should be glad you did not look in January, same kits were around £80

Buy TeamGroup of Avexir, same quality, better looking and for less money, 8GB kits from £44 at OcUK.

I'll probably end up doing that. Gives the "everything must match" part of my brain a twitch though!

Vimes · 18 Mar 2015 at 21:08

Apart from the £4 is there much between the Kingston or the TeamGroup....?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-204-KS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-060-TG&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387

I was leaning towards the Kingston more of familiarity and UK based support etc for their life time warranty.

Apart from being red (not too good) they are both LP in form (good).

I guess that tighter timings should be possible if ran slower, if that should matter in anything other than benchmarks...?

MrMD · 18 Mar 2015 at 22:21

Get the kingston,Cheaper better timings and a lower operating voltage if you choose not to run them at full speed via XMP

Vimes · 18 Mar 2015 at 22:53

Thanks

I agree, with regards to the Kingston - even more so if the others were at their normal price.!

Blackjack Davy · 23 Mar 2015 at 17:04

Kelt said:
Think yourself lucky.

First PC I built, ram was £30 per MB!

Yeh, per MB!!!

Lol, first RAM I ever bought was 0.5 MB and was on a PCB 12" long and 2" wide and cost a small fortune.