KitGuru’s Anton Shilov reports that DDR4 prices have dropped approximately 25% since late June.
“According to DRAMeXchange, the world’s leading computer memory tracker, one 4Gb DDR4 chip rated to run at 2133MHz cost $3.618 on the spot market on the 28th of June 2015,” he explained.
“The average price of such chip dropped to $3.302 on the 1st of August. At present such chip costs $2.719, or about 25 per cent less than in late June.”
Meanwhile, the cost of DDR3 memory is also decreasing, with the price differential between the cost of a 4Gb DDR3 1600MHz chip ($2.217) and a 4Gb DDR4 2133MHz chip pegged at around 30 per cent.
“The price of DRAM memory chips directly affects pricing of memory modules,” Shilov confirmed. “As a result, DDR4 DIMMs cost less than DDR3 modules a year ago.”
Commenting on the report, Loren Shalinsky, a Strategic Development Director at Rambus, notes that DRAM prices have finally started to decrease after an extended period without major fluctuations.
“Shilov points to DDR4 coming down about 25% since June. We’ve also seen a corresponding, albeit slightly smaller, drop in DDR3 prices of about 19%,” Shalinsky told Rambus Press. “According to DRAMeXchange data, the delta between DDR3 and DDR4 is now only about 20% – although DDR4 offers higher performance at that price. We expect this price delta to continue to shrink, helping to further drive adoption of DDR4.”
As a point of comparison, says Shalinsky, the first DDR3 product (1Gb) was introduced in late 2009. By the end of 2010, iSuppli tracked a price drop of nearly 50%.
“Manufacturing node shrinks are becoming increasingly difficult,” he added. “However, shrinks are still being driven into the marketplace, which helps increase production capacity and gives the manufacturers the ability to charge lower prices.”
Nevertheless, it should be noted that DRAM prices are still higher than they were back in 2012 – a year marked by extremely low margins for memory manufacturers.
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