PC DRAM bottoms out as price cuts slow to a trickle

[Shawn Knight]

Forward-looking: Solid-state drive prices are expected to continue their downward spiral through the third quarter but the same does not appear to be the case for DRAM. Market intelligence firm TrendForce said production cuts from DRAM suppliers coupled with seasonal demand has reduced inventory pressure. As a result, the substantial price cuts we have witnessed over the last several months will slow to a trickle – but not go away entirely – in the third quarter.

Analysts project the average selling price of PC DRAM in the third quarter to be between zero and five percent of what it was in Q2. DDR4 could dip more than DDR5 (between three to eight percent versus zero to five percent), TrendForce added. It's the exact same story for server, mobile, and graphics DRAM, all of which are also expected to dip between zero and five percent in the coming quarter.

Despite production cuts and easing inventory, TrendForce warns, a full turnaround might not happen until 2024 at the earliest.

Given TrendForce's report, now is as good a time as any to pick up PC memory and a quick check on pricing confirms this. A 32 GB kit of Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4 can be had for just $79.99 over on Newegg. Crucial's 32 GB kit is even cheaper at $69.99 although it is a tad bit slower (3200 vs 3600).

If it is DDR5 you need, this 32 GB Mushkin Enhanced Redline kit for $97.99 looks solid, as does this 32 GB GeIL Orion kit at $84.99. Team Elite kits are even more affordable with prices starting at $69.99.

A separate report from TrendForce on the state of the NAND flash market was far more ominous for suppliers. Analysts with the firm predict the average selling price of consumer SSDs could drop as much as 13 percent in the third quarter.

TL;DR: Now is a great time to buy memory and storage.

Image credit: HyperX by Almas Salakhov, TridentZ by Syed Ali

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https://www.techspot.com/news/99325-pc-dram-bottoms-out-price-cuts-slow-trickle.html

 

[yRaz]

Relative to the cost of other components, DRAM and solid state storage have become basically free. How cheap do they need it to become?

 

[Lew Zealand]

OK you convinced me yesterday so I upgraded 16 to 32GB in my secondary PC just now. Will try out same memory in primary and if it's a happy camper, then I'll spend another whole...

$48. Yes, again. Mr. Moneybags here.

 

[nismo91]

I don't know why but I feel like 16GB doesn't cut it for me today. 32GB should be the new minimum if you're using DDR4 given the price.

not only so many current games are VRAM hogs, they are also RAM hungry. I actually just realized that despite having no iGPU, windows still allocate some RAM to the video card in my PC. you can see it in the win10/11 task manager. for an example I'm using 6GB 1660Ti and when I'm opening 4K HDR video in mpc, the windows uses 4GB of VRAM and 0.8GB of RAM for the video card. I don't know why it does that but all I know is that modern apps and games just consume alot of RAM and 16GB isn't alot by today's standard.

I don't play any exotic or demanding games, but I noticed that even Fortnite uses a lot of RAM. almost 17GB of RAM are used even when I don't have anything else open. all that drops to 3.7GB when I closed the game so I guess the game itself uses 13GB of RAM.

it's not all about gaming too. I noticed that even microsoft outlook also consumes a lot of RAM. 8GB of RAM couldn't cut it especially if it's running in slow speed due to single channel.

I remembered the old article explaining 8GB vs 16GB vs 32GB of RAM for PC gaming and it is understandable that after 5 years RAM requirement has virtually doubled. https://www.techspot.com/article/1770-how-much-ram-pc-gaming/

 

[axiomatic13]

64GB is my bare minimum with some games eating up to 32GB now.

 

[Hotlynx16]

Relative to the cost of other components, DRAM and solid state storage have become basically free. How cheap do they need it to become?

Ram has gone down but power supplies got JACKED UP! The same PSU I used to get for $80 to $95 is $150 now!!!!I am glad I bought a couple of spares!!

 

[Hotlynx16]

OK you convinced me yesterday so I upgraded 16 to 32GB in my secondary PC just now. Will try out same memory in primary and if it's a happy camper, then I'll spend another whole...

$48. Yes, again. Mr. Moneybags here.

Ha,Ha, I guess I will have to move up from 32GB to 64GB, original memory in 2020 was $117 now about $40, WOW

 

[hwertz]

Hah, my system is obsolete and uses DDR3. Lucky me, I can max this thing out with 32GB for under $40 now!

 

[Hotlynx16]

Yes, I have two backup computers that use DDR3 that require the low density DDR3, found some on eBay a while back used for $40

 

[human7]

With memory so cheap it makes Nvidia's shenanigans with their GPU memory this generation even more difficult to understand. Yes, graphics memory is different, but it isn't that much different.