According to DRAMeXchange, the gap between DDR2 and DDR3 prices continues to widen as demand increases and supply falls. The cost of DDR3 rose by about 5%. During the first half of August, the average contract price of 1Gb DDR3 chips rose by 11.9% to $1.50. This is up from $1.31 in the first half of July, and $1.25 in the first half of June.
The trend is forecasted to continue into the fourth quarter of this year as suppliers are expected to commit up to 30% of capacity to DDR3 by that point. Samsung and Hynix are scheduled to adopt 40nm technology to produce DDR3 chips in the second half of 2010, and Nanya Technology, Inotera Memories and Rexchip Electronics are also preparing to undertake DDR3 production.
Although the transition is accelerating, it's no secret that lower-speed DDR3 modules offer little to no visible performance boost over their DDR2 counterparts, while often costing a hefty premium. How long will it be before DDR3 is over its greatest hurdles in widespread adoption and is as affordable as DDR2?