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  • sonicmerlin - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    The title of the article incorrectly states "since 2015", when the text clearly states the 20% drop is from early 2016.
  • Ian Cutress - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    That was a mistake on my part. Updated :)
  • Mikuni - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    How can the fab cost so much? 12-13 billions? It would be interesting to see an article detailing the design and processes of such buildings, the machinery used etc.
  • woggs - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    The tools installed are the money... These are a little dated but interesting...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeGqCl3YAaQ
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q_n4vdyZzc
  • mejobloggs - Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - link

    Those videos are mind boggling, just trying to think how much technology involved in all that
  • AndrewJacksonZA - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    There's a typo on the headings on the first graph: "sopt" instead of "spot"
  • anomalydesign - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    These findings of DDR4 prices continuing to go lower don't match with my personal experience. In ordering RAM in the past month I've come to accept that the prices are significantly higher than they were earlier in the year.

    After reading the article I though perhaps I was misremembering the prices, so I looked back through my order history at Newegg. I purchased multiple 16 and 32GB DDR4 kits from different brands back in April, and in each case the listed price on those kits was not only lower than the current price (by at least 10-25 percent), but they were well below the price of ANY comparable kit currently available.

    So I don't know why the graphs and examples in this article don't line up with what I've experienced. I think perhaps looking at particular brands and models is part of the issue, as one that is priced at the entry level can move up, or vice versa. But unless there is a way to show prices not of a particular kit, but of the least expensive example of a given speed/capacity, I don't think these findings reflect the reality of the RAM market.
  • anomalydesign - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    One example, which has gone from $110 to 152 in the past few months: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
  • CaedenV - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    It could be that you have been scooping RAM up on sales and deals available at the time, and the chart prices are for the 'normal' or 'average' going price of the products.
    I know that for DDR3 I picked up 16GB for my home server last spring for ~$80, and then during prime day sale I picked up another 32GB for my desktop for $65. Just goes to show that charts only show part of the picture... But still, RAM is dirt cheap compared to a year or two ago!
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    No, your experience here is correct; Anandtech's reporting is incorrect.

    See the price graph here of a common set of DDR4-2400 set of ram with no heatspreaders over time this year.

    https://pcpartpicker.com/product/kCL7YJ/gskill-mem...

    Lowest RAM prices were around April~May this year, after that prices began to pick up, and today, prices sit about ~20% higher than their historical low around April~May. And this isn't the only set of RAM that had the same price swings...

    See:
    https://pcpartpicker.com/product/tPVBD3/corsair-me...
    https://pcpartpicker.com/product/ydCrxr/gskill-mem...
    https://pcpartpicker.com/product/xxs8TW/gskill-mem...

    Etc...
  • Minion4Hire - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    JoeyJoJo, just select 180 days instead of 120 on that first chart you link to and you'll see quite clearly that Anandtech's reporting is correct. Compared to the beginning of the year, the current prices are lower. Sure, there have been even lower prices than right now, but prices are still lower than they were 7 months ago.
  • milli - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Here in Belgium the same. Prices are up massively. 20 to 40%
  • yuhong - Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - link

    DRAMeXchange also shows a higher price for 4Gbit DDR4 than months ago, while 4Gbit DDR3 prices did not increase as much. I noticed that 8Gbit DDR4 is getting close to crossover now.
  • yuhong - Friday, July 29, 2016 - link

    8Gbit DDR4 has hit crossover on DRAMeXchange. At the time of this writing, "DDR4 8Gb 1Gx8 2133 MHZ" is at $3.664 and "DDR4 4Gb 512Mx8 2133 MHz" is at $1.836.
  • iwod - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Not really interested in consumer DRAM pricing, I mean they are already very very cheap. And it is properly more interesting for LPDDR4 to drop price, since that will be use in some Laptop, Smartphone and Tablets.

    More interested would be 32GB DIMM and 128GB DIMM drop price, so we can fit 128GB to 1TB Memory on server for very cheap. SQL and Cache Servers.
  • Flunk - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Past trends don't show much connection between the price of DRAM and Nand on phones and tablets. Most of the time then manufacturer pockets the difference.
  • yuhong - Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - link

    Interestingly, even 32GB DDR3 LR-DIMMs has been dropping in price. I wonder if this is due to oversupply.
  • tipoo - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Offset a bit by the CAD being down to 76 cents American now :(

    Story of my life is piece together a nice mid range PC on PCpartpicker, oh nice I got it under 1000 - crap, forgot to hit the Canadian flag. Price is now 33% higher plus 15% tax plus the "we hate canadians" markup companies like to do despite nafta. Delete build and cry self to sleep. Repeat monthly.
  • JoeyJoJo123 - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Nobody hates Canada; That's just the price of doing business there in Canada, along with the taxes and other such exchange related problems that businesses are facing and then unfortunately have to reflect down to you, the consumer.

    If you're upset about Newegg charging you ~40% more than the American website does, then either go across the border and have your parts purchased and mailed there for cheap, or complain to your government officials about the relatively weak Canadian dollar. This really just boils down to economic policy and what your government is doing about it.
  • andrewaggb - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Well to be fair, the whole 'buy america' thing comes across as 'hates Canada'. There's some pretty ridiculous stuff that has resulted, like tearing down a bridge for too much Canadian Steel and stuff like that. And Obama really had it out for the Alberta pipeline, despite plenty of US oil projects and pipelines being built.

    Anyways, I doubt our current government will do much to improve the $. I think it's more about social policy, child care, etc this time around.
  • invasmani - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    The majority of American's that actively live in the northern states most impacted by the Keystone pipeline deal were in favor of it. It's the fault of Obama and democrats who tried to make it into a big environmental issue despite the fact that a pipeline is much safer than railroad transport.
  • catboy - Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - link

    tipoo is correct. Corporations scam Canadians with outrageously unfair prices just because they can. Here is a news report about that fact:

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/country-pricing-a-ca...

    Of course, that report is not about hardware, but Canadians get price gouged on hardware in the same way as they do on all other products.

    I recommend for Canadians to stop buying products from Canadian sellers whenever possible. If enough Canadians do that, then corporations will end the practice of price gouging Canadians.
  • doggface - Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - link

    Same thing happens in Australia. $160 in USD = $350-$400 in AUD.
    The manufacturers price items much lower in the US to get the buzz from websites like these. Then mark it up in lower volume countries.

    Another example. $US600 for GTX1080 = $AUD1150

    Sure. Our dollar is lower. But it doesnt account for the massive discrepency. We call it the Australia tax
  • Arnulf - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    I find it intriguing that Samsung has been producing complex circuits on 14 nm node for some time now yet they are only switching to 18 nm for DRAM production (which should be more dense).
  • DanNeely - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Somewhere around half a DRAM die is made up of analog components used to terminate signals on the database; and unlike the digital circuits in the ram cells themselves analog components scale minimally with process shrinks. As a result DRAM gets less of a benefit from process improvements than things like CPUs/GPUs/Flash that are almost all digital components on the die. The analog penalty has gotten worse with each new generation of DDR because to keep the data bus stable at higher frequencies the termination components need to be moved closer to the DRAM; leading to a steady migration of them from the mobo to the dimm to the dram chips themselves.
  • p1esk - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Source? Everything is analog of the circuit level.
  • DanNeely - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    It was something I read back when the DDR4 spec was first released so I'm having trouble finding it (will look more later); but analog components are things that aren't transistors eg resistors, capacitors, inductors (also power transistors which need to be a certain size to carry the amount of current that they do or a lot of RF components; but neither of them are a factor here). Physical size is a major component in how they perform. ex Make a capacitor half as large and all other things equal it's capacitance is only half as great.

    It's one of the factors behind why the minimum size dimm goes up every time there's a new process. The lower capacity dram chips see the least shrinkage because the largest fraction of their die is signal termination components that don't shrink much.
  • yuhong - Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - link

    I guess that is why they often eventually drop things like x4 configurations when moving older DRAM like 1Gbit DDR2 to newer processes.
  • jardows2 - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    I built my current computer in 2102, and purchased 8 (2x4) gigs of DDR3-1600 RAM. Thinking I could eventually upgrade to 16 gigs if needed, but then memory prices shot up. I can finally purchase the same RAM I did 4 years ago at a slightly lower price, instead of a significantly higher (at times was double what I paid) price!
  • bananaforscale - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    I built mine in late 2011 and bought 4x4 GB of DDR3-1600. Decided to upgrade the memory past winter, the price per GB was still about the same for the DIMMs I used, but doubling the amount and buying faster memory wasn't that much more expensive -> went from 16 GB 1600 to 32 GB 2133 (except the CPU only supports 1866 but whatevs) and distributed the old memory among less important hardware.
  • Ratman6161 - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Ummm. I think you may have your decimal points in the wrong position? i.e. $1.751 should be $17.51? Looking on NewEgg I don't see a single 4 GB modual for a dollar seventy five :)
  • bananaforscale - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Those are chip prices, not module prices, and it's 4 Gb, not GB. Put 8 of those on a DIMM and you're in the ballpark.
  • Ratman6161 - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Ahhh. My mistake. I generally don't bother thinking about the cost of components within the components - just the actual module I'm buying.:)
  • andychow - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Since producers like Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix are not happy with the current situation on the market, observers have reported that the big three intend to implement a plan to control supply.


    Wouldn't that be defined as illegal collusion?
  • FunBunny2 - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    -- Wouldn't that be defined as illegal collusion?

    this is the USofA. everything in law has to be "business friendly".
  • DanNeely - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    Only if they meet privately and do it in secret. Public statements on the line of "a pricewar from flooding the market and driving sale costs below production costs would only screw everyone; we're not going to start one" are fine.
  • poohbear - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link

    This is a cyclical industry, and DRAM prices have bottomed out. They've already started the upwards trend in pricing, next year they should be considerably more expensive, so buy now if you plan on upgrading within the next year before prices go up!

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