Why is ddr ram so expensive

At the top-end of the performance spectrum, G. Despite being a high-priced niche product, even the G. High capacity kits have also come down in price as well, though perhaps by not as much as mainstream kits. In the last several months IC costs have continued to drop and volumes increased, while demand for all compute components in the first quarter is usually pretty low, which gives retailers like Amazon and Newegg as well as manufacturers themselves good incentive to decrease prices of their modules in a bid to keep their sales on decent levels.

While DDR3 has an advantage of lower latency, it will get considerably harder and more expensive to upgrade such platforms in the future after DRAM makers reduce production of previous-generation memory. The miniscule difference between DDR3 and DDR4 pricing indicates that supply of the latter is ramping up and is getting on par with the former.

Which is not to say that DDR3 will disappear overnight. However, a lot of mainstream desktops and notebooks were designed for DDR3 modules because it used to have a considerable price advantage.

The majority of new x86 server designs nowadays already use DDR4. Servers utilize considerably higher amounts of memory than notebooks or desktops i. Worldwide PC shipments totaled Sales of tablets reached Meanwhile, shipments of smartphones hit Part of this drop in demands is of course seasonal, as sales of electronics are typically down in the first half of the year.

There are only three major DRAM manufacturers on the planet, but the competition between them remains tough. Nobody wants to cut-down DRAM production because nobody wants to lose market share. Moreover, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron are aggressively adopting smaller manufacturing technologies to cut down costs.

It typically takes around 2 years to reach price parity with previous generations, and we expect trends to remain similar with DDR5 modules as well. As such, DDR5 memory kits are expected to be priced really high. MSI also reports that it takes around 2 years for a new memory standard to reach parity with its predecessors so we can expect DDR4 prices for DDR5 memory by the second half of The voltage configured was standard 1. Over the past two years, the price of DRAM has skyrocketed.

Graph and data by GamersNexus. It would be one thing if that kit were an outlier. Instead, the costs are fairly compressed below a certain point. The explanation for this spiking is that mobile demand for DDR4 has stripped the market bare. And according to DigiTimes, mobile DRAM inventory levels are spiking at smartphone manufacturers, with some companies carrying 2x the load they were as weak demand for devices and skyrocketing prices bite into smartphone profit margins as well.

Overall smartphone sales grew slightly in , but not at the kind of meteoric rate we saw in earlier years. Apple is slashing its iPhone X production targets.