Price Check Q3 2016: DRAM Prices Down Over 20% Since Early 2016
by Anton Shilov on July 25, 2016 12:01 AM ESTHigh Capacity and HEDT DDR4 Pricing
Now, let’s take a look at larger kits designed for HEDT systems. Due to the intracacies of the quad-channel memory controllers inside Core i7 Extreme Haswell-E and Broadwell-E processors, HEDT kits do not boast with extremely high frequencies because it is hard to run four modules at high clock-rates. Even then, at moderate frequencies such DRAM sub-systems deliver a lot of bandwidth. What memory kits for HEDT do require are sub-timings optimized for their operation in quad-channel mode since in far not all situations a pair of dual-channel kits will work fine in quad-channel mode.
Due to the fact that HEDT kits do not operate at extreme data-rates, there are a lot of options to choose from since virtually all suppliers of DRAM modules offer such kits, including Crucial, Corsair, G.Skill, Mushkin, Patriot and so on.
Crucial Ballistix Sport LT DDR4-2400/CL16 4×8 GB (BLS4K8G4D240FSC)
Crucial introduced its Ballistix Sport LT DDR4-2400/CL16 32 GB (4×8 GB) kit (BLS4K8G4D240FSC) relatively recently and back in February it used to retail for $224. Today, it is available for $139.99 at Amazon and for $139.99 at Newegg. Moreover, there are Ripjaws 4 kits from G.Skill with CL15 timings that cost $134.99 at Newegg, but which are absent at Amazon, most likely due to distribution.
Next up are 64 GB DDR4 kits for high-end desktops. Another quad-channel set of memory modules from Crucial, the Ballistix Sport LT DDR4-2400/CL16 64 GB (4×16 GB) kit (BLS4K16G4D240FSE) seems to be among the most affordable options. The product currently costs $249.99 at Amazon and the same amount of money at Newegg. When it was added to Amazon’s database in early May, it was priced at $300, but at some point later on its price declined to as low as $195 and $215.
If you want fast memory for HEDT, be ready to pay a lot for it.
Corsair’s Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200/CL16 (4×16 GB) CMK64GX4M4B3200C16
Corsair’s Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200/CL16 64 GB (4×16 GB) quad-channel kit (CMK64GX4M4B3200C16) currently costs $389.99 at Amazon and $389.99 at Newegg. Its competitor, the G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200/CL16 64 GB kit (F4-3200C16Q-64GTZKY) retails for $359.99 at Newegg. A good news is that prices of even such high-end kits are rapidly declining: back in February the Vengeance LPC 64 GB DDR4-3200 quad-channel kit cost $630.99.
Corsair's Dominator Platinum Quad-Channel Kits for HEDT
Meanwhile, Corsair’s top-of-the-range Dominator Platinum DDR4 modules continue to be the most expensive in the industry. The company’s Dominator Platinum DDR4-2666/CL15 64 GB (4×16 GB) quad-channel kit (CMD64GX4M4A2666C15) has MSRP of $439.99. However, its actual price at Amazon is $631.99 (up from ~$530 a month ago), hence, no changes from December 2015.
At the moment Newegg does not carry the CMD64GX4M4A2666C15 kit, but it used to cost around $430 in late June there.
By contrast, an octa-module CMD64GX4M8A2666C15 kit is priced at $540.39 (up from $475 a month ago) at Amazon, which is lower than its MSRP of $584.99.
Meanwhile, Newegg sells the Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4-2666/CL15 64 GB (8×8 GB) kit for $469.99.
It is evident that market trends have an effect on prices of even ultra-high-end memory solutions, which is why their prices are generally declining. Nonetheless, such DRAM kits are still expensive and their exact prices can depend on supply from the manufacturer or distibution rather than the price of DRAM ICs in general. We advise to keep this in mind because fluctuations in pricing can occur on a weekly basis.
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invasmani - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
The majority of American's that actively live in the northern states most impacted by the Keystone pipeline deal were in favor of it. It's the fault of Obama and democrats who tried to make it into a big environmental issue despite the fact that a pipeline is much safer than railroad transport.catboy - Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - link
tipoo is correct. Corporations scam Canadians with outrageously unfair prices just because they can. Here is a news report about that fact:http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/country-pricing-a-ca...
Of course, that report is not about hardware, but Canadians get price gouged on hardware in the same way as they do on all other products.
I recommend for Canadians to stop buying products from Canadian sellers whenever possible. If enough Canadians do that, then corporations will end the practice of price gouging Canadians.
doggface - Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - link
Same thing happens in Australia. $160 in USD = $350-$400 in AUD.The manufacturers price items much lower in the US to get the buzz from websites like these. Then mark it up in lower volume countries.
Another example. $US600 for GTX1080 = $AUD1150
Sure. Our dollar is lower. But it doesnt account for the massive discrepency. We call it the Australia tax
Arnulf - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
I find it intriguing that Samsung has been producing complex circuits on 14 nm node for some time now yet they are only switching to 18 nm for DRAM production (which should be more dense).DanNeely - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
Somewhere around half a DRAM die is made up of analog components used to terminate signals on the database; and unlike the digital circuits in the ram cells themselves analog components scale minimally with process shrinks. As a result DRAM gets less of a benefit from process improvements than things like CPUs/GPUs/Flash that are almost all digital components on the die. The analog penalty has gotten worse with each new generation of DDR because to keep the data bus stable at higher frequencies the termination components need to be moved closer to the DRAM; leading to a steady migration of them from the mobo to the dimm to the dram chips themselves.p1esk - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
Source? Everything is analog of the circuit level.DanNeely - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
It was something I read back when the DDR4 spec was first released so I'm having trouble finding it (will look more later); but analog components are things that aren't transistors eg resistors, capacitors, inductors (also power transistors which need to be a certain size to carry the amount of current that they do or a lot of RF components; but neither of them are a factor here). Physical size is a major component in how they perform. ex Make a capacitor half as large and all other things equal it's capacitance is only half as great.It's one of the factors behind why the minimum size dimm goes up every time there's a new process. The lower capacity dram chips see the least shrinkage because the largest fraction of their die is signal termination components that don't shrink much.
yuhong - Tuesday, July 26, 2016 - link
I guess that is why they often eventually drop things like x4 configurations when moving older DRAM like 1Gbit DDR2 to newer processes.jardows2 - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
I built my current computer in 2102, and purchased 8 (2x4) gigs of DDR3-1600 RAM. Thinking I could eventually upgrade to 16 gigs if needed, but then memory prices shot up. I can finally purchase the same RAM I did 4 years ago at a slightly lower price, instead of a significantly higher (at times was double what I paid) price!bananaforscale - Monday, July 25, 2016 - link
I built mine in late 2011 and bought 4x4 GB of DDR3-1600. Decided to upgrade the memory past winter, the price per GB was still about the same for the DIMMs I used, but doubling the amount and buying faster memory wasn't that much more expensive -> went from 16 GB 1600 to 32 GB 2133 (except the CPU only supports 1866 but whatevs) and distributed the old memory among less important hardware.