DRAM Prices Reportedly Remain Gouge-y For Foreseeable Future

The latest report out of TrendForce and DRAMeXchange indicates that the already-high DRAM prices will continue to climb through 2018. Original shortages were accused of being fallout from impending Samsung and iPhone major launches this year, but new information points toward a slow-down in production out of the big three memory manufacturers (Samsung, Micron, SK Hynix). The three companies claim to be running R&D efforts for future technologies, but the fact that all three coincide does mean that each group can continue to enjoy exceptionally high margins into the future.

Typically, one would expect that an R&D investment period by a major competitor would spur the smallest of the three to invest more heavily in production, given that this would enable the company to steal some marketshare. That didn’t happen, unfortunately, and DRAMeXchange forecasts a slowdown in annualized growth in the DRAM supply.

Now remains a poor time for first-time DIY PC builders, and is sadly why we haven’t posted our usual monthly PC build guides – a staple of our site for half a decade. The prices are just too difficult to work with, in many instances. It may actually be worth attempting to overclock memory.

We’d suggest reading the full TrendForce write-up. It’s a good look at what’s going on in DRAM.

- Steve Burke