Weekly Memory Prices - Week of July 1, 2002 - Page 2

Weekly Memory Prices

SDRAM

While we see a few price shifts in SDRAM this week; overall prices aren't up or down that much. The biggest of the price hikes comes at the PC150 512-MB level, which went up $9 to $118. Short of that change we see only a couple $2 and $3 price increases, mixed in with price drops ranging from $1 to $3 with one $4 price drop on PC100 CAS2 256-MB which now sits at $34. True to form, we see only very minor changes in this category again this week.

DDR SDRAM

Sticking with the status quo, DDR SDRAM prices are still moving quite slowly, and we only see two changes in our listings this week. Both were very slight $1 and $2 price increases on PC2100 128-MB and 256-MB. As we expected, we are starting to see very stagnant prices on PC2700, which have remained unchanged in price for the second week in a row.

RDRAM

For those in the market for RIMMs this week - well, lets hope you're not looking to rack your new powerhouse system with PC800 ECC 512-MB, which incidentally went up $17 to $256 over the past week. PC800 256-MB also jumped a couple of dollars in price while the nigh-obsolete PC800 64-MB and 128-MB both dropped by $2 and $1 respectively.

Overall

Overall memory prices aren't moving a whole lot, as each week we're generally seeing a couple $1 to $3 price changes (in either direction) with only one or two major price shifts to report. This slow and steady trend seem to be due to vendor competition as opposed to industry factors, but the halt in PC2700 price decreases makes us wonder if the low-price party is over. Buying a few 512-MB sticks at these prices can be considered a safe investment.

A good bit of advice for those looking to upgrade their system memory in the near future is to remember that memory prices are volatile and while our weekly guide does illustrate overall trends, the actual dollar price could shift up or down quite quickly.

Vangie"Aurora" Beal
News & Interviews Editor