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Every time the DRAM market is headed for a complete and total meltdown someone publishes / promotes / creates a marketing campaign to get the general public to upgrade the PC memory. This thing crops up every 6 years or so. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Here is the latest:
Not so surprising that the public doesn't really know the difference between DRAM, hard drive and cache, all are different sorts of memory, but only computer scientists and engineers have the training to understand it all in any detail. Many software companies promote "Cleaner" apps to speed up your computer as well.
Companies like Apple are now soldering the RAM into the motherboard, so that end-users cannot upgrade their own RAM, they must buy the proper RAM model at purchase time at inflated prices. I have a 2011 MacBook Pro, one of the last models to allow RAM upgrades by users, along with upgrades of the hard drive to an SSD. New MacBook Pros have the SSD glued to the case, which cannot be easily removed.
I think we need to fully understand how to program on 3D Xpoint 1st, before we could find the new equilibrium price. Majority daily work like surfing internet, writing emails and etc. do not need huge memory. A reasonable size embedded DRAM + Xpoint would be enough. Whenever there are heavy tasks like 4k gaming, VR or HPC, GPGPU with HBM has better efficiency. So traditional DRAM business will be squeezed into pure high end, mostly in the cloud from my humble view.
I'm looking at near term market dynamics, well inside the timeframe that Xpoint has any material effect. I'd predict by next February DRAM prices are close to half of what they are today. Anyone else care to make a guess?
The general economic and industry environment is definitely bad for DRAM price in the coming 12-month period.
1, The new Microsoft Windows 10 works fine for most existing PC and laptops with 4/6/8 GB memory.
2. New PC sales, desktops and laptops, doesn't grow despite Windows 10 released.
3. All the mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) is not growing as fast as used to be. The two major growth markets, India and China, are highly competitive in pricing.
4. Although there are limited DRAM manufacturers but this 800-pound Samsung has its Semiconductor Division as the only business division still growing and making huge profit. If DRAM demand plunged, Samsung might be forced to dump memory into the market in order to at least maintain the same level of revenue and profit.
5. Stock market crashed in China and many other markets will push many companies to be cautious in IT spending and upgrade.
I don't really care one way or the other about street pricing or upgrading my PC. I think this is interesting because it will come into play as China Inc. continues to try to take over Micron. As Micron financials weaken due to price erosion the likelihood of that happening increases significantly.
Furthermore, if China controls Micron in a few years then Samsung will need to acquire SKH for scale. In the end who will be the Intel of memory??? Korea, China or USA? and who will be the AMD?
Here is the latest:
