RAM prices going to soar?

[Jammrock]

Background:

I'm sure most of you remember last years RAM prices and how much they really sucked. The reason that happened is because several smaller RAM makers jumped ship, because they were not making profits on RAM. It all boiled down to supply and demand. There was a high demand with a smaller supply = high prices.

The Bad Story:

I was talking to my brother who works at a RAM manufacturing company the other day and asked him what's happening in the bowels of the RAM industry. His reply was, "buy RAM NOW!" According to him (and he has been very accurate thus far) several RAM makers are switching over to Flash RAM, because of its higher profit margin.

What does this mean? If he is right, and if you have been watching RAM prices you kind of haft to agree, RAM prices will triple, maybe quadruple by years end. Basically there is going to be a RAM shortage unil the big dogs can ramp up their processes to compensate. Prices are going to be like last year times 2.

Of course this is all speculation on his part, but like I said before, he is rarely wrong about things like this. He nailed last years price hikes accurately, there's no reason for me to not believe him now. I hope he's wrong, especially since DDR RAM isn't out yet. So if you're looking to upgrade RAM within the next 2 months, you may want to buy sooner than later.

Jammrock

------------------
Athlon 650, Biostar board, 128 MB PC133 (Crucial), G400 32 MB DH, SB Live! w/ Digital I/O, 10/100 NIC, lots of case fans, etc...

[This message has been edited by Jammrock (edited 22 June 2000).]

[SteveC]

Noooooooooooo!!!!

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

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[xortam]

Wasn't last years hike due to a large fire at a Taiwanese manufacturing plant?
If I understand correctly, this years hike may be due to Rambus licensing issues.

[Jammrock]

The fire was a very small part of it. Most manufactures were only down for a week or two. You must realize that the largest RAM makers are in the US (Micron), Japan (NEC, Mitsubishi, Hitachi, Toshiba), Korea (LGS) and Germany (Siemens), Taiwan doesn't have a very large share. They produce most of the generic stuff, motherboards and peripherals.

Last years RAM hikes were because a lot of the smaller generic RAM makers dropped out. Less competition and lower surpluses were the major factors to last years price hikes.

RAMBUS (the demon bastards that deserve to suffer a long, painful death and then burn in hell for all eternity) may cause prices to go up even higher, because they have patented items that have been considered 'industry standards'. So now their lawyers are running around sueing everyone for patent infrigements on items that the idustry has been using for years. Toshiba folded, but most of the RAM makers won't.

The major factor will be the supply and demand issues, because it's all about supply and demand. RAMBUS just wants to drive up SDRAM prices so their RDRAM will more competetively priced.

Jammrock

[RAB]

Local RAM prices for 128 megs of generic PC100 here in Atlanta have gone from $99 to $129 in the last three weeks. Rambus is the largest reason, those underhanded b*st*rds. But adding to this is that manufacturers are starting to place orders and take delivery of RAM for their huge Christmas inventory needs leading to a seasonal price run up.

Surely one of the big boys has some patent that RAMBUS needs that they can use to counter RAMBUS's extortion.

There were no DDR RAM chips at the latest shows which leads me to believe either 1) RAMBUS is somehow holding it for ransom or 2) there are still too many bugs for it to be shown yet. Either way, it doesn't look good for 3Q delivery as anticipated.

RAB

[Jammrock]

Now Hitachi folded to RAMBUS, too. Prices are really going to suck this year.

DDR RAM isn't out yet because there are no motherboards that use DDR RAM yet. Once the boards start shipping so will the DDR RAM.

Jammrock

[xortam]

We should have invested in RMBS when I mentioned their stock run last Friday. Shoulda, coulda, woulda (will actually, I couldn'ta).

[RAB]

Jammrock,
Chicken or Egg? Maybe we don't have mobo's because there is no DDR RAM available to test the boards with. What ever the case, this has Intel's fingerprints all over it.

RAB

[DentyCracker]

WE ARE SCREWED.
I told my brother in New York a week ago to BUY MEMORY NOW to bring back out here for me. The alarming thing is that this year it (increase) has started even earlier. Hitachi chips are usually on the low priced modules, so if they folded then (go to top) Royally

[OzAndrew]

I don't suppose a complete boycott of RAMBUS ram would work?, this is really bad news, it's already pretty high, if it gets very much higher, which as you guys said seems pretty likely ram will sit along side large upgrades like video cards and processors(well maybe not processors).

[Helevitia]

Since this posting, the memory I bought on Thrusday has gone up 18 bucks as of today, OUCH! Just thought I'd let everyone know.

Dave

[Compton]

perhaps what we need is an anti-rambus militia group

[andrei]

"anti-rambus militia group", more like anti-rambus death squad
Ram prices went up 50$ in two week here