System News

Mark Williams checks in to see if the DRAM shortage is finally over.

We last looked at DRAM prices back at the end of 2018. That was at the peak of the DRAM shortage, during the period when Samsung and Micron were both having teething problems ramping 18nm and 17nm production node rollouts for their memory divisions.

This created a shortage of DRAM in the market, which the only other major memory maker in the market, SK Hynix, couldn’t take advantage of, ultimately meaning less stock and thus higher prices. Checking in almost a year later it is quite obvious that the DRAM shortage is well and truly over.

We took a snapshot back in May this year of some basic DRAM kits available and their prices at the time during the peak, which seemed to last a little longer than everyone was expecting. Back then, a 2x8GB kit of 2133MHz, 2400MHz and 3000MHz DDR4 memory cost $139, $149 and $159 respectively. This very compressed price range was likely due to the more common slower speeds (and thus higher volume parts) starting to feel the pinch of the shortage, bringing them right up against the price of the higher tier kits. A rather crazy time when you look back at it.

At the time of writing, those same kits are respectively now $75, $109 and $119, a massive 46%, 27% and 25% reduction in prices! And while those reductions are great, as Jaimie points out in Shop Talk, the Australian dollar has fallen a little against the US dollar in that time, making these kits slightly more expensive than what they could’ve been had the market remained steady.

All this of course means cheap DRAM is once again available to everyone, including system integrators and builders. When asked if these price drops meant any changes generally for system builds now that the DRAM shortage is over, Jaimie said “Our standard speeds in a normal build has increased from 2400MHz to 2666MHz now, and gaming systems start from 3000MHz and are generally RGB”.

While 2666MHz doesn’t sound exciting, it’s a big move when you’re talking mainstream high-volume parts, not to mention around this time last year 2666MHz was still quite popular in entry level gaming rigs. So, while DRAM capacity usage has still largely stayed the same, speeds have at least moved on and become cheaper and more accessible.

AMD with its Ryzen 3000 series line-up has been pushing hard and making the case for the faster take-up of higher speed memory to best extract the most performance out of those processors. With the Threadripper 3000 series about to drop with quad channel memory support, the thirst for fast DRAM will continue, but at least now it shouldn’t cost and arm and a leg to fill all those memory channels.

Now, if only AMD could also bring some serious competition to the top end of the graphics card stack once again to bring down the prices of top tier cards from their current dizzying heights.