Rant: Wait, upgrading RAM from 1x 8GB DDR4 3200MHz to 2x 8GB DDR4 3200 cost how much?

[Chiyawa]

I was quite surprise that adding RAM from Dell official website totally makes no sense! I mean, seriously, with the upgrade price, I can buy a pair of 8GB RAM (which even cheaper) while keeping the existing RAM! It's not even ECC!

 

At the time of writing this: MYR 454.59 is equivalent to USD 102.66

 

An online shop that sells Kingston SODIMM 8GB DDR4 3200MHz RAM is selling for RM138 (about USD31.17) per piece!

 

Dell, this is not the way to go.

 

Chiyawa

[mariushm]

The RAM may be soldered onto the motherboard, not as a separate stick.

They may have to use more expensive ram chips for the 16 GB model, the 16 GB model of motherboard may be less often ordered so  it may be produced in lower volume which raises the price... you can find excuses. But yeah, the price is high. 

 

Note that your seller has a 65% off, the "standard" price is 399 RM, so that 399 RM is not that far off from 454.59 RM 

 

Anyway... new, in store, cheapest 8 GB 2400 Mhz stick here is 140 RON or 29$, the 3200 Mhz sticks start from 170 RON or 35$  and 16 GB sticks start at 300 RON or ~ 61.8$ .. and i get a 3% discount and free shipping for buying often from this store, so prices can be even better. 

You guys there are kind of screwed.

[Chiyawa]

Okay, to clarify a bit:

6 minutes ago, mariushm said:

The RAM may be soldered onto the motherboard, not as a separate stick.

For the unit in question, it is Dell Precision laptop that has 2 SO-DIMM slots. Their RAM can be upgraded easily.

 

7 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Note that your seller has a 65% off, the "standard" price is 399 RM, so that 399 RM is not that far off from 454.59 RM

An online marketing gimmicks. They purposely put a heavy price tag and then slash the price out to make people believe they're getting a great deal. That price slash has been there since 2019. Our local shops also sell at similar price (~RM140). Not just Kingston, but AData as well. I think I spotted Corsair also sell at similar price range although they are a little expensive (I think ~RM160).

 

11 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Anyway... new, in store, cheapest 8 GB 2400 Mhz stick here is 140 RON or 29$, the 3200 Mhz sticks start from 170 RON or 35$  and 16 GB sticks start at 300 RON or ~ 61.8$ .. and i get a 3% discount and free shipping for buying often from this store, so prices can be even better. 

You guys there are kind of screwed.

Yes, Malaysia are screwed. Just recently, anything we buy from Amazon.com has their import fee raised double beginning 1st of July. Buying an RX 6700 XT from Amazon is about RM500 cheaper than what the local market sell (or local online shops). Even with that import fee price hike, it's still cheaper to buy from Amazon. Though the issue is whether you want to take the risk (it'll take about 2 weeks to arrive, and also the item you receive may be DOA, and you have to return to Amazon for RMA which takes more time).

 

To make matter worse, our cooking oil price now almost doubled from June, and many fear the price could be tripled from June in next month. Malaysia, a country that has vast palm oil field and top ten global exporter, ran out of palm cooking oil for their citizen.

[Needfuldoer]

Factory-installed upgrades are rarely worth the price the OEM charges. The only times you should consider them are if the RAM and/or storage comes soldered to the motherboard, or if you can't get the processor you want in the minimum RAM, minimum storage base model.

[Chiyawa]

4 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Factory-installed upgrades are rarely worth the price the OEM charges. The only times you should consider them are if the RAM and/or storage comes soldered to the motherboard, or if you can't get the processor you want in the minimum RAM, minimum storage base model.

And then they will make it as if you have modified your system and could potentially void your warranty. I recently have 1 unit laptop (brand new) with keyboard issue and they almost decline for repair just because I upgrade the RAM. If upgrade the RAM can break their system, that means their system is so screwed up.

[Needfuldoer]

1 minute ago, Chiyawa said:

And then they will make it as if you have modified your system and could potentially void your warranty. I recently have 1 unit laptop (brand new) with keyboard issue and they almost decline for repair just because I upgrade the RAM.

At least in the US, they're not supposed to void your warranty for doing your own user-installable upgrades.

 

And if you hold onto the stock parts, and put them back the way they came from the factory before you send it in, they won't know anyway.

[xAcid9]

56 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

I was quite surprise that adding RAM from Dell official website totally makes no sense!

It never was, not just for Malaysia. OEM spare parts upgrade always had crazy mark up. Dell, Apple, Lenovo, HP 

[Chiyawa]

5 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

Lenovo

Well, at least Lenovo are more reasonable, although the price is still high. They charge me RM200 for a stick of 8GB DDR4 3200MHz laptop RAM for their Thinkpad E15 laptop (since there's only 1 slot of RAM and the system has 8GB RAM soldered to the motherboard). A bit pricey, but for many, it's not that much of a fuss since you don't need to open your system to add the RAM. I'm not sure about other brands, though, but I know Dell is pretty much take it up to eleven.

[mariushm]

22 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

To make matter worse, our cooking oil price now almost doubled from June, and many fear the price could be tripled from June in next month. Malaysia, a country that has vast palm oil field and top ten global exporter, ran out of palm cooking oil for their citizen.

This is related to war in Ukraine and other problems , see https://www.ifpri.org/blog/impact-ukraine-crisis-global-vegetable-oil-market

 

75% of Ukraine's oil production went to EU and China, now they're choked by the war... what's not stolen by Russians and exported to Syria and other places by ships, has to be routed by land through my country and Bulgaria and then shipped by train or other boats ... so much slower and already our ports work overtime to export Ukraine's grains. 

Your country exports to EU more because it's more profitable I guess, so the local prices go up as well.

 

Ukraine is major producer of sunflower oil, and grains...

You also have

* drought in South America -  soybean exports for Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay are forecast to decline by 5% from last year's levels 

* Malaysia palm production declined due to the impacts of Typhoon Rai in Dec. 2021 and continuing acute labor shortages and other issues the industry has faced since 2019, amplified by the COVID-19 restrictions on worker mobility

* Drought-impacted Canadian rapeseed production for 2021/22 declined 35% from the previous year, despite an 8% increase in planted area. As a result, Canada’s rapeseed exports are estimated to fall by 50%, and rapeseed oil exports down year-over-year by 20%.

 

[Chiyawa]

16 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

At least in the US, they're not supposed to void your warranty for doing your own user-installable upgrades.

Yeah. Actually, Many company do 'give a little fright' to the consumer that upgrading their system may break their system. Since many can't afford a laptop that easily, they do tend to fear of upgrading their system after purchase because 'there's always a risk the system can break'. Then again, not many Malaysian are capable to perform upgrade on their own because they're not really literate in electronics.

[Chiyawa]

5 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Malaysia palm production declined due to the impacts of Typhoon Rai in Dec. 2021 and continuing acute labor shortages and other issues the industry has faced since 2019, amplified by the COVID-19 restrictions on worker mobility

Well, that's what they want the world to know, but in reality, it's more complicated. Sure, labour was a big issue because of the pandemic (because almost 99% of palm oil workers are foreigners), The 'CoVid-19 restriction' is a joke because 'very few privileged' can host a big party without penalty whatsoever but workers were heavily restricted from working, including transportation sectors that carries goods to places because of 'fear of spreading disease', which can be overcome by a simple spray of disinfection, and typhoon rain don't damage the crops at all (oil palm is quite resilient to heavy down pour, but of course the soil erosion from the heavy downpour is the main culprit).

 

But meh, we knew we were screwed big times from the beginning of our independence, so it's no surprise.

[xAcid9]

27 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

Well, at least Lenovo are more reasonable, although the price is still high

Lenovo quoted me RM1800 to fix a 3 years old laptop that costed RM1600 new. Faulty RAM module(integrated).

I'm guessing they simply swap a new mainboard + CPU + ram but still , weak AMD APU + 4GB RAM which you can get better spec if you buy a similarly price new laptop right now. 

[Chiyawa]

15 hours ago, xAcid9 said:

Lenovo quoted me RM1800 to fix a 3 years old laptop that costed RM1600 new. Faulty RAM module(integrated).

I'm guessing they simply swap a new mainboard + CPU + ram but still , weak AMD APU + 4GB RAM which you can get better spec if you buy a similarly price new laptop right now. 

I see. Yeah, their spare parts are insane. Still, at the point of purchase, the upgrade is still a little high, but at least not like Dell that kind of high. RM200 for another stick of 8GB DDR4 laptop RAM is still okay if you don't want to get your hands dirty.