Topic: RAM Prices...As a techie, i cant believe this....

[CFA_Admiral_Tige]

Best Buys Ad------------------

256 MegaBytes PC133 SDRAM(The first style of "DIMM" Ram) $60
256 MegaBytes PC2700 DDRRAM(Twice as fast as the SDRAM) $40

Isnt that crazy???

Tiger  

[CFA_Admiral_Tige]

What type of RAM do you have?
SDRAM(PC66/100/133, 66MHz-133MHz)
DDRRAM aka "Double Data Rate"(PC2100-PC3700, 266 MHz-400 MHz)
RDRAM aka "Rimms"(PC533-PC1066, 533MHz-1066MHz)
Dont Know

 

[starwolf3500]

My understanding is that they aren't producing SDRAM in huge quantities anymore (they have shifted to DDR).  This is causing a low supply / high cost situation.

[CptCastrin]

Quote:
Best Buys Ad------------------

256 MegaBytes PC133 SDRAM(The first style of "DIMM" Ram) $60
256 MegaBytes PC2700 DDRRAM(Twice as fast as the SDRAM) $40

Isnt that crazy???

Tiger  

Not really, understand that PC133 is now considered legacy memory. Most current MBs are DDR and with nVidia's nForce2 chipset where both channels of PC3200 (DDR400) memory are accually being used, you will see less and less of the old SDRAM modules.

Funny you should put this up as I was looking at the pricing just recently. We have several legacy MBs taht need more memory (or an upgrade) and the pricing that I got pretty much mirrored yours. Plus I'm trying to find some old K6-2 500mhz cpus for a project. There is a computer sale this weekend (you know the type) that I'll probably go to, to see if there is any thing useful there.

Ah, gota' love being an IT guy.  

   

[Kroma_BaSyl]

Not that unusual, saw the same inverted price with PC100 about 9 months ago. Scarcity of a commodity drives up the price.

[Captain KoraH]

An interesting thing to note here is that this price situation does not seem to be the same for all PC components. Drives, for instance, don't get more expensive as they get old. PC RAM seems to have an "economic dynamic" all it's own where it starts out outrageously expensive, then as newer faster types emerge it gets cheaper for a while, and eventually as it gets "old" it starts getting scarce since companies stop making it, and the price starts going back up. Obviously the reason for this is that PC's seem to age very quickly, more quickly than most consumers and companies would like, so they tend to hang on to their "old" machines, making the RAM still useful. But where RAM is a component that is tied directly to the machines it's made for, things like Drives and video cards are not, and can be easily upgraded, so they don't have the same life cycle as the RAM. It's also this tie to the MOBO that makes most people eventually upgrade to a newer PC; to "get more speed" they have to get a newer computer eventually.

It's all a very interesting and unique part of the IT industry.  

[ActiveX]

I have an AMD K6-2 500Mhz I'm not using...

[ActiveX]

And some 256Mb SDRAM...

[CptCastrin]

Quote:
An interesting thing to note here is that this price situation does not seem to be the same for all PC components. Drives, for instance, don't get more expensive as they get old. ...

The key difference there is that HDDs are for the most part forward compatible. A 10gb HDD will work in any 586 based MB regardless of the configuration (AMD over Intel, etc.) and will probably continue to till SATA truely catches on. (as a side note my next build for my PC will be an all SATA set up ) Till then IDE drives et all will work in what ever system you put them in.

So unlike market forces for memory, which are currently based on innovation which causes obselesence. I.e. DDR replaces RIMM and SDRAM (though RIMM was supposed to replace SDRAM but we all know that didn't really catch) and the next big thing will do the same to DDR. The HDD prices won't see the same effect till the same causes are in place. Give it about 2 years ... maybe less.

       

[Praxis]

Maybe that SDRAM is the laptop version of RAM?  The laptop chips are half the size (actual physical size, not megabytes) and twice the cost.

[APEXNETHOR]

The same can be said about current CPU prices as well. For istance an AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1400Mhz 200fsb CPU has an OEM price of $89.99 compared to an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 333fsb with an OEM price of $81.00.

Yep it's a bit wierd but somebody must want those chips bad enough to pay that much for them just like memory dimms.  

[TB613]

Quote:
The same can be said about current CPU prices as well. For istance an AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1400Mhz 200fsb CPU has an OEM price of $89.99 compared to an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 333fsb with an OEM price of $81.00.

Yep it's a bit wierd but somebody must want those chips bad enough to pay that much for them just like memory dimms.    

That 1400MHz 200FSB CPU is almost imposible to find. I was considering picking one up to do a cheap upgrade to my 1000MHz machine and gave up when I was seeing eBay bids exceeding $100.00 for a used CPU! Since the motherboaed in that computer cannot take the 266FSB CPUs I gave up and built a brand new monster, P4 2.8GHz 800MHz FSB, Intel 875PBZ motherboard, two sticks of 512MB DDR400 RAM, Seagate 80GB Serial ATA hard drive, Sound Blaster Audigy LS, and a GeForce FX5200 as a temporary graphics card that will be replaced with a Raedon 9600 XT when they ship.    

[What's_in_a_name]

Quote:
That 1400MHz 200FSB CPU is almost imposible to find. I was considering picking one up to do a cheap upgrade to my 1000MHz machine and gave up when I was seeing eBay bids exceeding $100.00 for a used CPU! Since the motherboaed in that computer cannot take the 266FSB CPUs I gave up and built a brand new monster...

You can use the 266MHz FSB Athlons in a system only running at 200MHz FSB; it will underclock the CPU to 75% of its rated speed. So if you wanted it to run at 1.4GHz, you'd have to get roughly a 1.85GHz CPU which would be about 80-90 bucks. My Athlon was doing this, running at only 200MHz FSB for about a month after I did a BIOS update. The update reset the FSB speed to its default and I didn't notice until I ran DXDIAG that it wasn't running at the higher speed.  

[TB613]

Unfortunately What's_in_a_name the original A7V is one of the few Asus boards that cannot take a 266 FSB CPU since it is limited to the Thunderbird CPU's. My new computer rocks although it is much pickier about the updates from Windows Update requiring a restore point before each update.  

[Captain KoraH]

I was looking at the A7V when I built my last PC. In the end I think I went with the P4B266 because of all the on-board components that would free up PCI slots and USB ports, and the on board RAID feature. The next MB I got was a departure from my normal habits though, the NVidia Nforce2 chipset was hard to pass up. I guess it's becoming the standard now.  

[CFA_Admiral_Tige]

Geez...what did I start here....14 posts about HARDWARE in one day?????  Maybe I should post techie stuff more often!!!



Tiger

[TB613]

Quote:
Geez...what did I start here....14 posts about HARDWARE in one day?????  Maybe I should post techie stuff more often!!!



Tiger  

It's ALIVE!    

[CFA_Admiral_Tige]

Quote:

Quote:
The same can be said about current CPU prices as well. For istance an AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1400Mhz 200fsb CPU has an OEM price of $89.99 compared to an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 333fsb with an OEM price of $81.00.

Yep it's a bit wierd but somebody must want those chips bad enough to pay that much for them just like memory dimms.    

That 1400MHz 200FSB CPU is almost imposible to find. I was considering picking one up to do a cheap upgrade to my 1000MHz machine and gave up when I was seeing eBay bids exceeding $100.00 for a used CPU! Since the motherboaed in that computer cannot take the 266FSB CPUs I gave up and built a brand new monster, P4 2.8GHz 800MHz FSB, Intel 875PBZ motherboard, two sticks of 512MB DDR400 RAM, Seagate 80GB Serial ATA hard drive, Sound Blaster Audigy LS, and a GeForce FX5200 as a temporary graphics card that will be replaced with a Raedon 9600 XT when they ship.      

To heck with Thunderbirds....An Athlon XP 1800+ is a beautiful buy for the price, espically with an ASUS/nForce motherboard.  If you want to go all out, get an Athlon 64 FX_53...they kick the snot out of the P4's

[FireSoul]

Remember, ... OT.

[Brad Bowermaster]

Quote:
That 1400MHz 200FSB CPU is almost imposible to find. I was considering picking one up to do a cheap upgrade to my 1000MHz machine and gave up when I was seeing eBay bids exceeding $100.00 for a used CPU!

Check online forums' Classified sections. I picked one up over at AMDForums for $15. Alot of processors such as Durons, Thunderbirds, and low XPs go for $15-35 on forums. Depends how much the person needs to get rid of their extra parts stash