back to article Diving DRAM prices are a problem not even AI can solve

If you're in the market for a memory-optimized server or top-of-the-range workstation, the industry watchers at TrendForce have some good news. The average selling price of DRAM is expected to tumble another 10-15 percent in the second quarter of 2023. That's on top of Q1's 20 percent slide. That outlook isn't so rosy for …

  1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge
    Facepalm

    A problem?!

    Repeat after me: Consumer prices falling is not a problem.

    1. Richard Boyce

      Re: A problem?!

      Somehow I doubt that Apple will stop charging £200 / $200 for 8GB of RAM.

      1. Blank Reg

        Re: A problem?!

        I expect they will stop charging £200 / $200 for 8GB of RAM, they will bump it up to £250 / $250 because inflation or something

    2. localzuk Silver badge

      Re: A problem?!

      It is to their excessive profits.

  2. Potemkine! Silver badge
    Holmes

    I see a fall in price of SSD, and as a buyer I really don't see that as a problem but as an opportunity.

  3. GraXXoR
    FAIL

    greed > inflation.

    It's corporate greed and price hiking in so many sectors that's adding to the pain of lack of overall capital, causing any elastic markets to suffer.. It's not like putting up prices will allow all companies to gather more revenue in total from all customers in anything but the shortest term.

    With everything and their dog going up in price well above the supposed rate of inflation, consumers are looking for bargains and abstaining from purchases... This greedflation, as I like to call it, mixed in with aggressive "restructuring" forces people to smarten up their consumer practices and purchase with much more care and attention.

    As an aside, here in Tokyo, I see very few people with new iPhones for example, when just three or four years ago, the iPhone was a yearly replacement for most and biennial for the rest ... And none of my friends have replaced their graphics boards in three years. Yet on Kakaku.com (a price aggregator) we can see that higher capacity SSD and larger DDR4 RAM module sales over here are doing very well indeed, as people place their dwindling money on products they perceive to be reasonably priced.

    We're in a situation where bigger and bigger hands are trying to snatch fewer and fewer remaining candies. But if the bag is empty, you can have hands like Lana from Archer and still not grab much.

    /rant

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: greed > inflation.

      One upside is that you'll be more likely to question if that item is worth it which, is almost always no, in fact that item is junk.

    2. Ace2 Silver badge

      Re: greed > inflation.

      It’s like it’s some sort of secret that the $400 iPhone from three years ago is actually great, and you don’t need the $1400 one for any sort of normal use case.

  4. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "a great time to snag an SSD"

    Hmm, now there's a good point. I'll have to keep on the lookout for that.

  5. frankyunderwood123

    Oh yeah ... didn't notice ...

    The 2TB SSD I bought in September last year, is now £30 cheaper.

    You can get an entry level 2TD SSD for under £100.

  6. Snowy Silver badge
    Holmes

    Wholesale

    Wholesale prices may fall that much but I'm betting retail prices are not going to fall by as much.

  7. Pelican Express

    Count on me

    No danger, I bought 64G DDR4 last year. That was probably enough for the RAM industry to hang on for another year.

  8. Obseedian

    Micros~1 just needs to release a new Windows 'upgrade' that requires 256GB as a minimum. Problem solved.

  9. SnOOpy168

    Falling prices is always good news for consumers

    but falling salaries or purchasing power is not funny.

    too bad, my old MacBooks memory and storage requires surgery for upsizing and my iMac 27" 5K is already running at 32Gb

  10. bananape4l

    just bundle firefox more

    them memory leaks will have'm cryin' for rams aplenty soon!

  11. Binraider Silver badge

    When PC hardware routinely lasts 5+ years without upgrade, and a whole bunch of stuff was all sold at the same time, the outcome is hardly unpredictable! There will almost certainly be a hardware boom probably ~2025-2026 or so.

    Old school Keynesian economics always spoke of building up a reserve when times are good to cover for bad. We all know realities of business, dividends and government don't work well with keeping reserves.

    I have a desktop system sat at home with a 64GB of DDR4 in it. That'll be good for a very, very long time. Nothing even comes close to making use of it. By time I need an upgrade it wouldn't surprise me if DDR6 will be in circulation. Though I do like the increasing number of PCI Express lanes on newer boards - chipsets linked to DDR4 have some limitations.

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