Hardware & Technical Holy Double Data Rate Batman!

Newt Loranas · Dec 27, 2017

I thought it would be a neat idea to add an extra 16gb of RAM ( for a total of 32) to my machine. It needs DDR3 as it's old but I thought, "a single 16gb stick shouldn't be too bad, after all I paid around £40 for 16gb of Crucial memory when I built the machine"

£113!

£113!

£113!

and it's not like I'd be any better off if I were on DDR4... did someone blow up all the chip factories while I've been asleep?

Morbad · Dec 28, 2017

DRAM prices have been elevated for more than two years at this point. Supposedly production will be increasing in 2018, so we might finally see them fall again.

NascentChemist · Dec 28, 2017

I built a new system and I'm limping along with 8GB of 2400 DDR4. Manufacturers shifted their production way from desktop RAM towards more lucrative products, like smart phone chips.

Shadowdancer · Dec 28, 2017

Samsung are ramping up production, that might help a bit. Other than that, the market needs a good cartel culling again.

(addendum) Apparently the big offenders, Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix, have just been "invited" by the Chinese government for a bit of friendly chit-chat about price fixing.

Patrick_68000 · Dec 28, 2017

There is indeed a price explosion for some time. Hopefully, that the manufacturers will become more reasonable

Zak Gordon · Dec 28, 2017

I wonder if Bitcoin has had influence here also (as with GPU prices)? Still atleast HDD/SDD's are reasonably cheap currently. Maybe now when building a PC you need to plan over a 3-4year cycle, to get each main section of parts at their most economically reasonable?

The Chairmaker · Dec 28, 2017

There have been some suggestions that with Samsung dominating the memory market that they may have been deliberately manipulating prices. They were fined in 2010 by the EU for such practises.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...tiny-on-chips-after-price-surge-idUSKBN1EL017

Interestingly latest news re an investigation comes from China. Whats pertinent re this is that the Chinese are looking to enter the global memory market.

Newt Loranas · Dec 28, 2017

Well, it turns out my plan for running a VM to play ED in linux has fallen flat, my processor can't handle a second PCI 16 lane ( Core i5 3570k ) or the Virtualisation with Direct IO manipulation needed to pull it off. The memory upgrade is out too. so I think a bigger SSD while they're still relatively inexpensive. My linux drive is a 1 gb HDD. I have a 256mb SSD with win 10 on it. I think it's time to get a 500gb SSD and mirror my linux partition onto it.