[NYGEO18]

I have been waiting for the price of the 1 gb ram card to go down so I can replace my 512 and have my pb running optimally. Well...long story short I was just on crucial and it has gone UP in price!!!!
last I checked (a few months ago) it was only about $350 US...now its up to $450?
Whats the DEAL?
why has this item not followed the normal course of product depreciation that has occurred for every other item in the history of the WORLD?

[ibook_steve]

Technical reason, because yields of special smaller 512 Mbit parts (16 required for each DIMM) are still not great and 1 GB SODIMMs are still pretty new. It takes at least a couple years for the price on something like this to go down. 512 Mbit parts are used on 512 MB DIMMs, but only 8 parts are required and they are a standard larger size that is easy to produce, thus the low cost on such DIMMs. Relax and wait another year if you can't afford it now.

Steve

[h00ligan]

good 1 gig sticks are going for 280 shipped now.. not too far off from 2 512 sticks.

[NYGEO18]

Originally posted by h00ligan:
good 1 gig sticks are going for 280 shipped now.. not too far off from 2 512 sticks.

Where can good sticks be found? Is crucial really that much better than the competition? What is reasonably high quality but cheap?

[tooki]

Originally posted by NYGEO18:
Well...long story short I was just on crucial and it has gone UP in price!!!!
last I checked (a few months ago) it was only about $350 US...now its up to $450?
Whats the DEAL?
why has this item not followed the normal course of product depreciation that has occurred for every other item in the history of the WORLD?

Do you drive a car? I bet your gas prices have been going up just like mine.

Not all products have simple downward price curves. In fact, most don't. The laws of supply and demand dictate that when demand exceeds supply, the price will go up until they are once again in equilibrium (this is Econ 101 stuff, literally). RAM is a commodity product, and as such, its price will rise and fall, as it has done in the past. (I remember the Great RAM Price Surge Of, uh, what was it? 2000? RAM prices doubled over the course of a month or two.)

tooki

[tooki]

Originally posted by NYGEO18:
Where can good sticks be found? Is crucial really that much better than the competition? What is reasonably high quality but cheap?

Why is everything always about "cheap"?!? Isn't it worth something to buy a product of known-good quality that is guaranteed to not give you trouble?

Every product question on the forums is always "Cheap". It's annoying, because cheap isn't always the best buy. Cheap extremely often costs you more in the long run (at least it does in computing), if not in acquisition cost but in lost time and wages.

tooki

[iBorg]

Originally posted by tooki:
Why is everything always about "cheap"?!? Isn't it worth something to buy a product of known-good quality that is guaranteed to not give you trouble?

Every product question on the forums is always "Cheap". It's annoying, because cheap isn't always the best buy. Cheap extremely often costs you more in the long run (at least it does in computing), if not in acquisition cost but in lost time and wages.

tooki

Not much help there, Tookster! Everyone wants to save money, thus the reason for the initial post here, right? On the flip side of your argument against "cheap" - paying more does not always get you more, although you do have to be cautious about items, including memory, that seem unreasonably cheaper than the competition. The old adage, "If it seems to good to be true ...."

I've never gone with expensive chip manufacturers, like Crucial, simply because they always cost alot more than the competition. I do, however, go with a seller like "Otherworld Computing," which gives a lifetime guarantee against defective chips, and which has a history of good customer service, in case of defective merchandise.

The reason why memory is currently more expensive over the past couple of months, is that there are fewer chip manufacturing facilities, which has driven prices up significantly, perhaps 30% or more. Prices had gotten cheap enough that some manufacturers switched over to making memory for phones, camera media, etc.



iBorg

[f1000]

Contrary to NYGEO18's claims, prices for 1 GB SODIMMs have gone down over the past few months, while prices for 512 MB SODIMMs have gone up:


Price trend graph (PC2100DDR) 512 MB


Price trend graph (PC2100DDR) 1 GB



Price trend graph (PC2700DDR) 512 MB


Price trend graph (PC2700DDR) 1 GB

[gostan]

I purchased a 1GB ram module made by Samsung (I believe it is the same manufacturer Apple uses) for $319.00 from 1800memorytogo.com for my new PB about two weeks ago.

[Andrew Stephens]

Remember. back in the sixties memory cost over $1million per Mb. which would mean that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs would have to club together just to max out Steves powerbook!!

Onwards wnd upwards!!