Therefore, contract DRAM prices would provide a considerably better basis for an economically meaningful comparison. However, we do not know contract prices, and while they are clearly higher than historical memory prices, they may not be as high as spot prices. To that end, we cannot state for sure that DRAM makers get more money for their wafers than TSMC does for its logic wafers.
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Anton Shilov Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
usertests Device manufacturers can simply raise prices, or try to cut corners in as many places as possible, worsening the product. But I would be interested to see more expensive SoCs being used while memory reductions take place. In some cases, a faster SoC can compensate for worse memory. Mobile SoCs could include more L3 cache. AMD X3D allows you to perform better with slower/less/single-channel memory. At the very low end, such as cheap retro gaming handhelds, maybe bumping the SoC to something more capable makes sense and will allow it to emulate more systems, even if you have to settle for 2-4 GB of RAM. Running an emulation-focused Linux instead of Android could also help. Reply
ezst036 So thankful I run Linux and my memory usage is minimized against the lack of bloatware of other OSs. Reply
DS426 Insane. Twelve 128 GB DDR-5600 RDIMM's in a single server is looking to cost $50K USD or higher, well over even the very best AMD and Intel server CPU's in a 2-socket configuration. This isn't even for 256 GB modules or now 512's that will be available. Obviously not an apples-to-apples comparison, but just crazy to think about. Reply
urn66 Americans can thank the wave of Sinophobia and twice-elected Idiot in Chief Trump for his trade wars, locking Chinese DRAM out of the US market and a useless war on Iran that is raising the prices of everything. In case people think I am going off the deep-end, most electronics have a high fraction of plastics derived from oil and wafer fabs depend on petrochemical gasses now increasingly in short supply (only Russia can take up the slack). Elections have consequences, maybe use your brains to think before the mid-terms and send Disaster Donald a message. Reply
ejolson The price of RAM has led to astonishing arrests for theft of technology. https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/cxmt-planned-to-use-stolen-samsung-ip-to-develop-its-dram-court-hears-former-samsung-engineer-who-jumped-to-chinese-memory-maker-now-behind-bars This is not a fear but a fact. Even without stealing and cheating, I expect RAM prices will come down faster than most experts say. That is because the current doom and gloom is to a large part marketing designed to convince decision makers at high-tech companies to lock in current prices with long-term contracts. Since buy new and throw it out these days is not practical, I'd recommend computers that can be upgraded with more RAM and storage in the future. Given how underprovisioned current models are, even large companies will find computer upgrades desirable in the future. Plan accordingly. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/dram/dram-is-now-more-expensive-than-compute-chips-on-per-area-basis-ai-demand-drives-memory-die-value-past-leading-edge-silicon#main
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