Murmurings from Taiwanese industry sources indicate that the DRAM market continues to face challenging conditions as 2022 ends. DigiTimes reports that DRAM spot prices are down 40% this year. Specifically, spot prices for all sizes of DDR4 and DDR3 memory ICs have seen significant declines during 2022. Probably of most interest to PC enthusiasts and DIYers, though, is the observation that contract prices of 8GB DDR5 RAM modules have declined by 43% between the end of February and October this year.
Ideally, the whole of the PC industry would have moved over to DDR5 system memory in 2022, with the support of the newest platforms from AMD and Intel. However, those that bought into DDR5 builds had to pay quite a premium to add memory – in addition to the new CPU, motherboard, etc – especially early this year. Some motherboard makers thus cannily offered identical motherboards for the newest-gen Intel CPUs in either DDR4 or DDR5 supporting configurations.
So, the 43% drop in contract 8GB DDR5 module prices in eight months sounds impressive, but what about pricing for consumers? Let's take a peek at Amazon DDR5 price tracking figures for some of the biggest brand 16GB (2x matched 8GB modules) kits and see what has happened since spring 2022 (approx 9 months):
|
16GB DDR5 (2x 8GB) kit |
Spring 2022 price |
Current price |
|---|---|---|
|
Crucial DDR6 4800MT/s CL40 desktop kit |
$132 |
$71 |
|
Kingston Fury Beast 4800MT/s CL40 desktop kit |
$167 |
$93 |
|
PNY Performance 4800MT/s CL40 desktop kit |
$200 |
$130 |
|
Corsair Vengeance 4800MT/s CL40 SO-DIMM laptop kit |
$140 |
$63 |
The above Amazon pricing snapshot comparisons show some worthwhile price declines, which means putting together a DDR5 system isn’t so painful to the pocket at the end of 2022. Alternative DDR4 16GB (2x 8GB) kits from the likes of Corsair and PNY cost about $50 to $60 today, so much of the DDR5 premium seems to have vanished. However, faster cutting-edge DDR5 kits released recently aren’t encapsulated by our three-quarters-of-the-year price comparisons.
Moving back to the topic of the DRAM market in general, the DigiTimes report says that it can’t currently see any signs of recovery for this semiconductor business segment. The biggest influences being felt right now are due to DRAM makers having excess inventory, and device makers being cautious with orders. Last month we reported on Micron attempting to cut DRAM (and NAND) output to buoy prices, but such unilateral action usually doesn’t seem to have much of an effect. In Q3, DRAM makers reported a 30% quarterly decline in revenues, but of course, it is a little too early to have/see any Q4 2022 figures.
NAND News Nugget
Before we go, the source article shared a little extra news on NAND flash pricing. It claims that TLC NAND wafer prices continue to trend downwards, by as much as 20% last quarter, and it is starting to be uneconomical to produce these chips. SLC NAND price trends have held up much better though.
The DRAM and NAND contact price action commented upon above is a double-edged sword for consumers. We would like to see cheaper RAM and flash storage in retail, but we also need companies to have a sustainable income from their production - or they could grind to a halt, worsening the cyclical extremes in pricing.
