Computer Related > RAM prices	Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Focusless	Replies: 30

New Tue 23 Mar 10 17:18   RAM prices - Focusless

I was looking through my eBuyer online 'catalogue', which amongst other thinks allows you to monitor prices of your 'favourite' items, and noticed that the price of 2Gb of DDR2 800MHz RAM has gone from £16.43 (some time last year I think) to £36. And that particular item is still the cheapest of its type on the site. Is it likely to come back down again? Or is it going to go even higher? Last edited by: Focus on Tue 23 Mar 10 at 17:19 Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 23 Mar 10 17:39   RAM prices - spamcan61

Yeah, I'd noticed that too. The general weakness of the GBP on currency markets probably doesn't help. I doubt if this situation is going to change much, especially now that DDR2 RAM has been superseded on new systems by DDR3. I bought a 1GB stick of DDR2 for my netbook for 11 quid last autumn, more like 20 quid now. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 23 Mar 10 18:15   RAM prices - Iffy

...I bought a 1GB stick of DDR2 for my netbook for 11 quid last autumn, more like 20 quid now... My original Linux 7" Eee PC has 512mb(?) of RAM, half a gigabyte. Would upgrading to 1GB make any noticeable difference? Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 23 Mar 10 18:16   RAM prices - Bellboy

well if its gone up like that i would tell them where to stick it ;-) Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 23 Mar 10 18:56   RAM prices - spamcan61

>> >> Would upgrading to 1GB make any noticeable difference? >> Not sure on the Eee's flavour of Linux, I bought the 1GB stick for my Acer Aspire One so I could run Win XP sensibly on it, but given that RAM upgrades on the AAO are a major faff I chickened out and switched to Easypeasy on it ( Ubuntu 9 tweaked for the Acer) which runs fine, I ended up sticking the 1GB RAM in my Win XP Dell laptop. Slightly involved way of saying " I dunno" ;-) Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 23 Mar 10 19:44   RAM prices - merlin

>> Is it likely to come back down again? Or is it going to go even >> higher? It's more likely to go up from here because memory suppliers are moving to DDR3. I would have thought it will be cheap on ebay though. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 23 Mar 10 22:29   RAM prices - RattleandSmoke

High RAM prices are now eating into my profit margins. I typically buy around £100-£200 worth of RAM a month but I am now finding I can't pass on the full cose to my clients. I am also getting very little discount on RAM. If I spent £100 on RAM I would expect maybe £4 discount. I probably pay the cheapest price possible without buying it in bulk but its still far too expensive. An example if a Windows Vista machine running slow, it has two DDR slots on the motherboard with 2 x 512MB sticks in it. To upgrade I really need to make the machine 2GB. Now the computer may be three-fours old. 2 x 1GB of decent DDR2 will cost me £40 so the buy the time I have done a tune up etc the cost to client can easily be £80 and they won't see this as good value :(. I don't think the price has anything to do with DD3 because DDR has not got any more expensive. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 23 Mar 10 22:57   RAM prices - merlin

DDR memory price increased substantially back in 2008 when manufacturers were concentrating on DDR2. I would have thought that DDR prices are relatively stable now because supply and demand are balanced with current prices. It's now the turn of DDR2 to increase in price as supply falls. Reply to this message | Report message

New Tue 23 Mar 10 22:59   RAM prices - RattleandSmoke

I think DDR3 up has been a lot slower than DDR2 though. I know my supplier currently is selling that much DDR3s but it maybe because the computers with it are two new to need to upgrading. I bet they were not selling much DD2 back in 2006 either! Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 07:17   RAM prices - MD

How much would you pay for this Rats? 1GB DDR2 PC2-5300 Martin Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 09:57   RAM prices - spamcan61

>> How much would you pay for this Rats? 1GB DDR2 PC2-5300 >> >> Martin >> Personally I always use the Crucial web site for pricing RAM, they're maybe 10% above rock bottom pricing but they guarantee it'll work if you use their tool to find the right sort of RAM. I've used SWMBO's Dell 5150 as an example as it uses the RAM you're after:- www.crucial.com/uk/store/listparts.aspx?model=Dimension%205150 Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 09:04   RAM prices - Statistical Outlier

>> High RAM prices are now eating into my profit margins. I typically buy around £100-£200 >> worth of RAM a month but I am now finding I can't pass on the >> full cost to my clients. Rats, I'm sure we've been through this with you before. If you don't or can't make an acceptable profit on a job, don't do it. Lots of work where the profit is marginal or non-existent just makes you a busy fool. Seriously, you need to get out of the mindset. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 09:11   RAM prices - Pat

So may haulage firms who are no longer in business looked at an excellent turnover and ignored a very small profit margin. Pat Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 10:00   RAM prices - spamcan61

>> So may haulage firms who are no longer in business looked at an excellent turnover >> and ignored a very small profit margin. >> >> Pat >> Whilst I haven't yet had to resort to running my own business this has always seemed blatantly obvious to me, but there are still businesses big and small who don't seem to understand it or carry on regardless. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 12:28   RAM prices - RattleandSmoke

The fact is a simple RAM upgrade job often leads to other work and recomendations, so I may only make £20 on a RAM upgrade but it often leads to much better work. My profit/turnover ratio is actually good and the high cost of PCs now is in my favour as I have started doing motherboard replacements something a year ago I wouldn't do because it would be cheaper for the client to buy a new computer. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 16:51   RAM prices - MD

Yes I use Crucial.com too. Why in Heavens name you cannot pass the cost on is beyond me. You have had to pay it so charge it! I don't but bricks at 30 p ea. and charge 27p. !!!???^&%$£ There are so many businesses being busy fools and some seemingly wise (ish) folk cannot differentiate between turnover and their earnings........until for some, it is too late. M Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 17:01   RAM prices - RattleandSmoke

Because there is only a certain amount somebody will pay for upgrading their old computer. Thankfully I am doing more and more business stuff which pays better but I enjoy the personal stuff more. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 17:26   RAM prices - MD

Personal eh! Explain yourself dear boy...explain!! Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 19:58   RAM prices - Fursty Ferret

Funny, I was just thinking today that RAM prices seem to have doubled over the last year. I was holding off on putting 4GB in my Macbook on the hope that prices would drop over time - oops! Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 20:12   RAM prices - RattleandSmoke

Prices have actually gone up again a little bit :( Its now over £20 for 1GB DDR2 of laptop RAM in a decent brand :( Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 21:09   RAM prices - RichardW

Pah, I bought 4 MEGA bytes of ram for my 486 DX2 PC in about 1996. It cost a whopping EIGHTY pounds - and that was a knock down rate from a mate - retail price was well over £100. We don't know we're born these days etc etc.... Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 21:21   RAM prices - Crankcase

Oh come come. I spent £80 of Mrs C's money on a 12K (yes k) upgrade for my Acorn Atom in 1980 odd. Cue someone spending eight trillion sovereigns on three extra cards for their Jacquard Loom in 1802. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 21:28   RAM prices - Focusless

>> Oh come come. I spent £80 of Mrs C's money on a 12K (yes k) >> upgrade for my Acorn Atom in 1980 odd. Hey - I had one of those! Although didn't need to expand it - persuaded my parents to buy me the fully expanded 12k RAM + 12k ROM version for £300 IIRC, back in 1980 I think. I've still got the scrapbook containing strips of cash register roll onto which I typed the disassembled ROM contents. It beat learning social skills :) Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 21:43   RAM prices - Crankcase

Goodness - disassembling the rom was ambitious, or would have been for me. I was happy having 16 colours and both poking (?) and banging (!) the screen directly. Or was it plinging (!). It's a bit hazy now. I think I need a memory upgrade. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 21:51   RAM prices - rtj70

You used to POKE memory to change content. And PEEK to read it. My first memory upgrade was a RAM pack on a ZX81 but added 32KB internally to a SPECTRUM. Seem to recall you added more chips than you'd expect because they were faulty and some memory ignored. I paid a lot for an extra 4MB RAM on my first PC in 1993. But it ran Linux in 8Mb very nicely. IF DDR3 memory comes down a bit I might swap out the 2x2Gb memory modules in my iMac for 2x4Gb. So might have some spare DDR3 SODIMMs then. Might work in a MacBook if it's a recent one. Last edited by: rtj70 on Wed 24 Mar 10 at 21:54 Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 22:03   RAM prices - Focusless

>> You used to POKE memory to change content. And PEEK to read it. Not in Atom BASIC, which became BBC BASIC, as taught in schools, so there :) EDIT: just checked because I couldn't remember, but it was ? for byte peek/poke and ! for word peek/poke Last edited by: Focus on Wed 24 Mar 10 at 22:05 Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 22:01   RAM prices - Focusless

>> Goodness - disassembling the rom was ambitious or would have been for me. I was using a program listing from a magazine, which of course you had to type in then save onto cassette tape, keeping your fingers crossed it would load again next time after switching on. It was really exciting finding the bit of code which put 'Acorn Atom' on the screen: i969.photobucket.com/albums/ae173/focushj/DSCF0165.jpg Got it down from the loft a few years ago and switched it on - just got random characters on the screen. Gutted :( Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 22:22   RAM prices - rtj70

You could get an Emulator and it would work the same as you remember. A friend at Uni created the first BBC Micro B emulator on Unix which has spawned all emulators for the BBC B since I think. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 22:27   RAM prices - rtj70

I sadly could read and write machine code without the disassember/assember. On a Spectrum I used to write machine code in a data statement and poke it in memory. Reading it was another FOR NEXT look printing out the contents obtained by PEEK. Very sad. Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 22:55   RAM prices - Focusless

>> On a Spectrum Great machine - got a 48k one (£130) after the Atom and didn't know what to do with all that memory :) Reply to this message | Report message

New Wed 24 Mar 10 22:44   RAM prices - Focusless

>> You could get an Emulator and it would work the same as you remember. Hmm... well I donwloaded the top google search result: www.stairwaytohell.com/atom/wouterras/ but that didn't work - highest version of Windows it mentions is 95 (I'm using XP Pro). There might be one that works somewhere, but to be honest it wouldn't be the same. I mean, what am I going to do with it? Best just to rely on (rose tinted) memories... :) Reply to this message | Report message