Say goodbye to reasonable memory prices for a good while :/

[Zypher]

Big earthquake in taiwan...I don't have to tell you all how much crap is fabbed there, do I? Motherboards and vidcards too BTW.

They will milk it for every drop they can :/

[IceStorm]

I have enough toys to hold me over until after Y2K. I figure my next big component push will come in February/March of 2000. Hopefully things will have settled down by then.

Until then, I'll probably tack on another UPS, get a stack of DVD movies, and work on software stuff instead of upgrading my hardware. Unfortunately, this means I'm stuck upgrading a couple computers with recycled hardware (not the ones I've in my .sig), instead of buying new like I wanted to. Eh, they won't be used for games, anyway.

Just my $0.02.


------------------
Primary System: PIII-540 (450@4.5x120), Soyo 6BA+ III, 256MB PC100 ECC SDRAM, G400 MAX in multi-monitor mode. V2 SLI rig. Two Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u monitors, 3Com 3C905, SoundBlaster Live!, Altec Lansing AC5 spkrs, 2nd Parallel Port, WD AC41800 18GB HD, WD AC310100 10GB HD, Toshiba SD-M1212 6x DVD-ROM, HP 8100i CD-RW, Epson Stylus Pro, Sharp JX-9400 LJ-II compatible, OptiUPS PowerES 650, MS SideWinder Precision Pro USB joystick, Logitech 3-button mouse, Mitsumi keyboard, Win98 SE, Belkin OmniCube 4-port KVM

Secondary System: PII-266, Asus P2B BIOS 1008, 128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C590, ADSL Modem 640kbit down/90kbit up, 3Com 3C509, Mylex BT-930 SCSI card, Seagate 2GB Hawk, NEC 6x CD-ROM, Linux distro S.u.S.E. 6.1 (IP Masquerade works!)

Tertiary System: DFI G568IPC Intel 430HX chipset, P200MMX, 96MB of non-parity RAM, Millennium II, Intel Pro/100+ client NIC, SoundBlaster 16 MCD, Fujitsu 3.5GB HD, WD 1.2GB HD, Creative Dxr3 DVD decoder card, Hitachi GD-2500 6x DVD-ROM, Win98 SE

All specs subject to change.

[PurpleHaze]

Heh, I don't know about that. There was a point where 128mb of PC100 was $112. Now, yet another artificial (IMHO) shortage [6 hour power outage? Come on.] has it up to $270?! What the hell. Yeah. this earthquake will probably make them jack up prices to near $400 for 128mb of ram.

But I really don't think people will put up with that. This has happened before, memory prices go WAY up (ever since that story of a 'factory fire' in 1992) and then they go way down.

People are going to *wait till prices go down again to buy memory*, they aren't just gonna go "durr well there was an earfquake! here's $800!"


------------------
Ami Y. Koriuchi - foxyviolet@hotmail.com
Asus P2B 1010 - P3-500 - And a G400Max now.
256MB 6NS 70 GB of 10k RPM SCSI UW

Mustard is illegal here.

[Jorden]

Even before the earthquake, prices were rising allready, 128Mb PC-100 Dimm here in Holland costing 385 guilders excl. tax (about USD193)

Jorden.

[PurpleHaze]

dang Jorden that's cheap... I'd ask you to send me some, i'd send you some $, but the shipping would probably bring it above what it costs here anyways.

[Jorden]

will have to edit that... was yesterday's prices... is now up to 645 guilders (322 USD, including tax)

Shame upon shame

[SteveC]

Go check out the articles on <A HREf="http://www.theregister.co.uk">The Register</A>

There's a couple about what effect the earthquake is going to have.

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[WayneHu]

The comapnies in Hsinchu Science Park lost more than NT$ 5,000,000,000.. According to the news.
(US$ 1 = NT$ 31.7x)

I tried to call back home yesterday, but couldn't make any successful connection.

Fortunately, my parents are still alive!
But the furniture became a mass. :|

ps: My home is in Taichung, the next city of Nanto, which is the center position of this terrible earth quake.

[SCompRacer]

While natural disasters can have an effect on supply and pricing, this one seems more like a plan. Memory manufacturer's know you need this stuff, and cutting prices to sell it hurts all of their profit margins. I would not expect prices to fall to the level seen in October.

[DentyCracker]

The last time I bought RAM it was for US$95 a pop for 128MB of PC100 SDRAM. Now that I've sold my machine the price continues to skyrocket. WTF is $250 a pop. Hopefully it will be back below 200 when I'm ready to buy my Athlon at the end of next month. I hope also that Athlon and K7 MBs will drop in price during the next month when the 700 MHz ones become available

[PurpleHaze]

True, SComp, I do think it's some sort of scheme... but the thing is, everything else gets progressively cheaper. Memory does not. Programs aren't going to get any smaller. But memory prices are going to keep going up. These things -usually- correct themselves.

[Helmchen]

hey! waddayawant, folks! we use RAMs as really kewl key rings

happycamper@helmchen

[SteveC]

Anyway, I think that this should have been predicted. Look at this - following the big earthquakes that have been happening recently - greece, turkey, Taiwan, and japan today and so on, can't you kind of draw a line between all these places? Bit spooky, isn't it?

Look at the map in:
http://wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/neis/current/world.html

to see what I mean.

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[Zypher]

Duh, I knew mem was going up (search for my prev postings) but trust me, you thought it was high before this? ROFL keep watching.

My name brand cas2 7ns PC100 128mb was $108 back in beginning of may99. Same stuff $210 last week...who knows what it'll be now, with all the speculation. Anything with pcb is high target for price hikes. Damn, I was planning on getting abit's camino or 810e board this year.

An earthquake has far more subtle effects on fabs than power outs 'n normal bullshit. Can you say 'realign every damn system and recertify yeilds'? /groan

Its also a perfect excuse for some collusion style crap.


DAMN DAMN DAMN

[MrBlue]

That is crazy. I bought this PC100 ram for $115 over a year ago. I bought some PC125 for $79 at the beginning of the summer!

-MrBlue