DRAM Prices Continue to Trend Downward
The already fragile DRAM market continued to lose ground in the second half of October.
DRAMeXchange said that contract prices for 4GB DDR3 memory modules fell below $16 and there is no sign of a changing trend as the $15 mark is in sight.
At the time of this writing, the DRAM market exhibited severe volatility with spot prices of 4 Gb DDR3 1600 MHz chips ranging from $2.65 to $1.75. 2 Gb chips dropped as low as $0.80, while 1 Gb versions are selling for about $0.60. It is estimated that these prices are already below production cost and DRAM makers will have to react with production cuts beyond already announced cuts.
Last month, Nanya and Inotera said they are reducing their output by about 20 percent, while Elpida and Rexchip cut their production back in August. ProMOS has entirely abandoned the DRAM business. At this time, it does not appear that DRAM makers can hope that demand for PCs will pick up significantly until the second half of 2013.
IHS recently argued that the growth opportunity may be in DRAM for smartphones and tablets instead.

Answer: A whole of fun and gluttonous space, just like the yesteryears's 1000W+ PSU's
Never thought I'd see survivalist policy advocated with respect to PC hardware.
@The Article,
This is likely to continue regardless. With Windows 8 being more efficient with memory than Windows 7 and hardware's seemingly inexorable march toward more performance slowing, RAM purchases are bound to decline.
Until such time as we devise something to do with our computers that takes less power than hardware we have now can muster, this trend will only get worse.
Because I said so.
It is all about business and wastes.
Have you ever heard about LEAN manufacturing? Waiting is waste, over production is waste, inventory is waste.
These companies rather sell their inventories in a very low prices (even less than assembly cost) rather than keep the inventories and loose more in the long run.
Although the idea seems simple enough, it is not. If a manufacturer (lets call it MEM1) decides to do this, they will only be helping their competitors who will be continuing to sell at the new higher prices thanks to the drop in supply that MEM1 created, while MEM1 takes in heavier losses thanks to the reasons explained by vaughn2k. And if MEM1 could convince all the other manufacturers to withhold shipments for a short period so they could all enjoy a rise in prices, they will all get dragged into court for conspiring to artificially inflate prices. Even if the new prices would be barely higher than production costs, I believe it would still be considered artificially inflated prices (someone correct me if I'm wrong..).
The only way they could get out of this is for them to agree to actually close down factories to reduce output by all of them, or wait it out till the weakest manufacturers finally cave and drop out of the market (thus increasing demand for the remaining players), or dream about a substantial increase in demand.
Fixed costs (unavoidable) are included the cost of manufactured goods. If they stop producing and selling anything they still have to cover fixed costs, but no longer have any revenue to cover it. Depending on the specific amounts, you can lose more by halting production than continuing. It's not sustainable in the long run, however.
Unlike hard drive makers, DRAM is made outside of one city-state. It would take some major coastal devastation in east Asia to wipe out capacitor makers.
DDR4 will hit market in a year anyway, so they have room to fall still.
I'm poorer than you and here prices are at least 50% higher.
Good 4 GB DDR3 1333 ram still costs me around 30 bucks.
thats a lot more than 50%. Out here you can get 8GB for $40 or less. Don't hate us for it though, we are generally nice people
Go to school, move? Or just be content.
Yeah, will they make ddr3 to ddr4 adapters then?