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WHY IS RAM SO FREAKING EXPENSIVE IN 2017?!?!

Preston builds
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I feel like 2017 has been the best and also the worst year to build a gaming rig.

The good part about 2017 has definitely been pascal (even tho it came out in may 2016 but the prices have only come down significantly in 2017), the really nice and cheap deepcool cases, Ryzen, and sort of coffee lake.

 

But my god.

The prices for ram has increased almost 300% over the last year. WTF.

I remember back in mid-late 2016 when you could buy a 1x8gb stick of DDR3 for $36 Australian dollars (about 28 US dollars), but ever since april 2017 ive noticed the prices getting higher and higher, i remember one day i was on pcpartpicker parting out a rig just because i was bored and thats what i do in my spare time. The same crucial 1x8gb stick of ddr3 was around $50 and i was kind of shocked. The cheapest 1x8gb stick of ddr3 right now it $84 australian dollars. WHAT?! And DDR4 is no different, the cheapest 8gb kit being 99 freaking dollars. This increase in ram prices alone has made 2017 a very bad year to build a gaming pc, because if you are like by my estimate around 70% of PC gamers out there, you are usually building with a budget of around 600-800 dollars. and having to spend $100 on only 8 gigs of memory is a real pain in the ass especially since very popular games like Battlefield 1 and PUBG need 12 gigs of ram at the minimum. Can somebody please explain to me why the damn ram is so damn expensive and will it get better any time soon?

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Supply is low and demand is high. I got my 32gb kit for 200 dollars early 2016 and now same kit is around 320 dollars. 

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Lower the supply as demand increases, then raise the price. Greed 101.

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600x  Board: Asus PRIME X570-P  Ram: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2x8) DDR4-3000  Case: Fractal Design Define S

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070  SSD: HP EX950 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME  HDD: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM

PSU: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Platinum 750W  Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4  Monitor: Viotek GFT27DB 27.0" 2560x1440 144 Hz

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1 minute ago, ramencupofjoy said:

At this point I'm just moving around the 8GB in my old build when I upgrade

RIP those on DDR3.

My eyes see the past…

My camera lens sees the present…

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1 minute ago, Zodiark1593 said:

RIP those on DDR3.

im on ddr3 :(

im hoping to upgrade to Ryzen soon so i will have to spend minimum $100 on ram as well thats why im so annoyed.

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DDR3 has been becoming more expensive because it is produced less.

DDR4 is more expensive ATM because of the high demand (in basically anything, including phones,PCs, etc.) And I think because of the increased costs of NAND and they recently switched to some sort of new way of making memory

"We're all in this together, might as well be friends" Tom, Toonami.

 

mini eLiXiVy: my open source 65% mechanical PCB, a build log, PCB anatomy and discussing open source licenses: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1366493-elixivy-a-65-mechanical-keyboard-build-log-pcb-anatomy-and-how-i-open-sourced-this-project/

 

mini_cardboard: a 4% keyboard build log and how keyboards work: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1328547-mini_cardboard-a-4-keyboard-build-log-and-how-keyboards-work/

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31 minutes ago, MrUnknownEMC said:

Supply is low and demand is high. I got my 32gb kit for 200 dollars early 2016 and now same kit is around 320 dollars. 

I got a 2x8gb kit at 2133 speed for 80 bucks CAD last summer and now the same kit is 180 bucks. Super expensive now.

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I forget who but someone posted about it on the forums, demand is high, and there is a current shortage of the flash thingies, estimated to be an issue until about 2019.  Yea, sad shit....

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49 minutes ago, Preston builds said:

im on ddr3 :(

im hoping to upgrade to Ryzen soon so i will have to spend minimum $100 on ram as well thats why im so annoyed.

I'll probably wind up with a 4790K well before I go for a platform upgrade, though for some reason, even that is expensive.

 

While at the time, I built this system a month before Skylake launched as the performance increase was minimal, and the cost of the new platform higher. However, the hike in DDR4 more than eats that difference I saved, should I decide to upgrade platforms.

My eyes see the past…

My camera lens sees the present…

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Trying to build a Ryzen 5 atm in Australia and looks like 8gb of ddr4 3000 is going to cost me about $130. I was thinking of waiting for the black friday sale in a few weeks to pick up some ram. Not sure if it's worth waiting.

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1 hour ago, thorhammerz said:

Supply and Demand just working its magic.

 

Welcome to Capitalism :D.

As compared to other economic systems which might simply not produce more ram! Hahahaha

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3 hours ago, johndms said:

Lower the supply as demand increases, then raise the price. Greed 101.

Economics 101. If people are willing to pay that price for RAM in low supply, then why the fuck not?

2 minutes ago, Shog said:

As compared to other economic systems which might simply not produce more ram! Hahahaha

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4 hours ago, Shog said:

As compared to other economic systems which might simply not produce more ram! Hahahaha

The topic is not about whether RAM is produced, merely why its price is expensive.

 

High (and increasing) demand without a matching increase in supply = higher prices.

 

Welcome to Capitalism ;).

 

Spoiler

I say that in quite the positive note xD.

 

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3 hours ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Economics 101. If people are willing to pay that price for RAM in low supply, then why the fuck not?

It's not so much a matter of being willing to pay that price, it's more about having no other choice. It's like gasoline prices. We can't just NOT buy gasoline and fuel, so I tend to lean more towards the Greed category.

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600x  Board: Asus PRIME X570-P  Ram: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2x8) DDR4-3000  Case: Fractal Design Define S

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070  SSD: HP EX950 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME  HDD: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM

PSU: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Platinum 750W  Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4  Monitor: Viotek GFT27DB 27.0" 2560x1440 144 Hz

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Just now, johndms said:

It's not so much a matter of being willing to pay that price, it's more about having no other choice. It's like gasoline prices. We can't just NOT buy gasoline and fuel, so I tend to lean more towards the Greed category.

Morally, one could call it greedy. Straight economics doesn't use a real moral system.

Check out my guide on how to scan cover art here!

Local asshole and 6th generation console enthusiast.

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Supply and demand.

 

I ended up building at just the right time... Got 32GB of DDR4 for $120 in May of 2016... the same kit now is $360... it's crazy...

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Having issues with a Corsair AIO? Possible fix here:

Spoiler

Are you getting weird fan behavior, speed fluctuations, and/or other issues with Link?

Are you running AIDA64, HWinfo, CAM, or HWmonitor? (ASUS suite & other monitoring software often have the same issue.)

Corsair Link has problems with some monitoring software so you may have to change some settings to get them to work smoothly.

-For AIDA64: First make sure you have the newest update installed, then, go to Preferences>Stability and make sure the "Corsair Link sensor support" box is checked and make sure the "Asetek LC sensor support" box is UNchecked.

-For HWinfo: manually disable all monitoring of the AIO sensors/components.

-For others: Disable any monitoring of Corsair AIO sensors.

That should fix the fan issue for some Corsair AIOs (H80i GT/v2, H110i GTX/H115i, H100i GTX and others made by Asetek). The problem is bad coding in Link that fights for AIO control with other programs. You can test if this worked by setting the fan speed in Link to 100%, if it doesn't fluctuate you are set and can change the curve to whatever. If that doesn't work or you're still having other issues then you probably still have a monitoring software interfering with the AIO/Link communications, find what it is and disable it.

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21 hours ago, thorhammerz said:

The topic is not about whether RAM is produced, merely why its price is expensive.

 

High (and increasing) demand without a matching increase in supply = higher prices.

 

Welcome to Capitalism ;).

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I say that in quite the positive note xD.

 

WHY the price is expensive is because the government isn't regulating the market. Say we had a government driven economy. The price of ram might be the same and the industries don't have incentive to up their production capacity. Other interference could include RAM vouchers, raffling systems, and further ram ownership restrictions or applications where you would need to identify and prove your reasoning for needing more ram. 

Yes Capitalism allows the price to go up, and that incentives the manufacturers and producers to increase their production capabilities in order to deliver the most ram! To summarize, capitalism is the reason why there's even STILL ram on the market!

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2 hours ago, Shog said:

WHY the price is expensive is because the government isn't regulating the market. Say we had a government driven economy. The price of ram might be the same and the industries don't have incentive to up their production capacity. Other interference could include RAM vouchers, raffling systems, and further ram ownership restrictions or applications where you would need to identify and prove your reasoning for needing more ram. 

 

I am genuinely curious as to why you keep thinking this topic has anything to do with government interference (or the lack thereof) in the economy: we are merely discussing why RAM prices are going up based on free-market forces (namely high demand and insufficient supply = higher prices).

 

Therefore once again: Welcome to Capitalism xD (kindly refer to the bolded part of this post).

 

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  • 1 month later...
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Yep, expensive. Got 16 gigs of DDR4 for $100 CAD last year. Thought I'd shop around for more, same pair costs $249 now. Insane.

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