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To: Jdaasoc who wrote (63160)	12/19/2000 2:32:22 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi Jdaasoc; Re the price ratio for PC800 vs PC133. Your figures (which show RDRAM 3x the price of SDRAM) are lower than the Smsperling data for a number of reasons: (1) You are using 128MB sticks. It turns out that this is the cheapest variety of RDRAM in terms of dollars/MB, while SDRAM is relatively cheaper at larger sizes. Odd thing is that SDRAM is also relatively cheaper at the 64MB size, probably because of a combination of SDRAM volume with the RDRAM heat spreader costs. (2) You are using Samsung memory store pricing, and these prices are considerably higher than average for SDRAM, while lower than average for RDRAM. As to why that is, I don't know. I'd love to do a long term chart of PC800 vs PC133 as priced at Samsung, but I don't have the data. In comparison, Smsperling has the data going back over a year. If you decide to start charting the price of registered DDR DIMMs, I suggest that you start with a size considerably larger than 128MB. It would a bit nuts to use registered parts for anything other than testing in such a small size. 256MB registered sticks are nearly the same price as 128MB registered sticks, and would make a more rational choice for a PC server: DDR 256MB 32X72 ECC REGISTERED 200MHZ PC1600 184 PIN SDRAM $439 By comparison, the cheapest PC600 ECC 256MB stick I saw on Price watch was $389. So DDR is still more expensive, but what did you expect? DDR hasn't been out very long has it. -- Carl P.S. Just for grins, I bought a small amoung of ETYS this morning. Not going to hold it longer than two weeks.

To: Jdaasoc who wrote (63160)	12/19/2000 2:49:55 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi Jdaasoc; Re the high price of DDR memory. This is not a surprise to me, here I am explicitly predicting exactly this situation for initial DDR prices back in September (and I could probably find much earlier references if I looked harder, predicting that new technology is going to inititally be more expensive doesn't require rocket science.): Bilow, Sep 26, 2000 The prices charged by Crucial for those DDR sticks has nothing to do with spot, production or anything at all. Since they are selling into a restricted market, the prices don't mean anything at all, in my opinion. I think they deliberately set them relatively low in order to convince engineers that DDR would soon be very cheap. This is situation normal with new memory types. The memory makers are going to sell things for what the market will bear. But when they are talking to design engineers, they are all sweetness and light: "We plan on reducing prices blah blah blah blah." All they are doing is trying to convince engineers to use their high margin products. But engineers know this, and take it into account. Maybe they do it cause it might fool a manager somewhere. I can just see the engineer convincing management to go with DDR because Micron is already "selling" it at a 10% premium (or whatever) to SDRAM. (LOL!) Of course Micron is going to sell the first sticks at a high price. None of this really matters to a design engineer making a decision today. Even the motherboard guys know that their motherboards are not going to hit the big volume until mid to late next year. What matters is the pricing at the time that volume is required, and with DDR we are all pretty sure that it will be reasonable. Sure the early stuff will be expensive, but humans love new stuff, and will pay extra for it. #reply-14461395 Re: "Registered DDR which is the type Intel believes that will actually work in PC servers in 2002 has a price of $385." Here is Tenchusatsu on Intel's opinions about DDR: So to generalize the way Intel sees it, DDR is great for systems with ultra-high capacities* of memory, while RDRAM is great for smaller-scale desktop systems and workstations.* #reply-12892422 Given that they are going into "ultra-high capacity" systems, shouldn't you be looking at the pricing for 256MB and larger registered DIMMs? Hey, if you'd like to make such a series, please do. In fact, point me out the numbers, and I'll add them in, but lets do it for reasonably sized modules, not the dinky ones that would be unlikely to be used in a server. But by comparison, remember how expensive RDRAM was when it first came out. -- Carl P.S. Re: "I hope you are long the market on something because I don't think Greenspan will disappoint Bush on his honeymoon today." Ouch!

To: Jdaasoc who wrote (63160)	1/4/2001 3:04:55 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

Hi Jdaasoc; Crucial is selling relatively cheap DDR. They are offering 64MB PC1600 registered ECC DDR DIMMs for $80.99, and they say they have stock. Their 128MB unbuffered PC1600 goes for $77.39, which is considerably cheaper than the cheapest 128MB DDR on priceWatch, $176, or the cheapest PC600 128MB RDRAM, $139: pricewatch.com pricewatch.com What's your take on these pricing discrepancies? -- Carl Select "184-pin DIMM" on the following link for DDR prices from Crucial: crucial.com