Price Guides December 2003: The Year in Component Prices

Memory went under some very important changes this year.  Primarily, RDRAM disappeared with Intel's lack of commitment to keep the architecture alive. With DDR speeds increasing so rapidly and cheaply, Intel's decision to basically abandon anything Rambus was probably an excellent decision.  The incredible success of 865PE and 875P became the final nail on the coffin for RDRAM.

From December of last year, memory speeds increased almost 100%.  DDR400 just began to show up in the mainstream (although the format standard was not sanctioned).  Mushkin and OCZ are both approaching the DDR600+ threshold, which has done incredible things to the memory market.  As speeds continue to increase that high, slower speeds such as DDR400 are forced to lower in price to stay competitive.  We only need to look at the last years prices to see this force in action cost approximately 3X today's prices (and with slower timings). 

The disappearance of PC133 was a particularly interesting trend.  At a memory conference in March, we asked a high end memory manufacturer about the consequences of DDR effectively replacing PC133 in less than 6 months.  Unfortunately, if history is any lesson, a similar trend will probably occur within the next 18 months as we start to see the introduction of DDR2.  We will just have to see what the next year brings for us!