Could we, please, stop inflating the DDR4 prices? First it was the fact intel released x99 early and there was limited supply. then it was the new memory tech, What is it now, after half a year, and with 2 consumer platforms being on the way to use DDR4?
Because they can. The market that is unhappy with 8GB/stick of 2GHz+ DDR3 is really, really slim. The only reason people are buying DDR4 is because they have to in order to run the X99 platform, they don't have a choice. There's no second hand market of people looking to double up either, basically they can sit back and watch the market sell their product.
I also think they seriously burned themselves on building too much capacity ~2 years ago leading to price dumping of DDR3, this time I expect them to err on the side of caution. They won't build more capacity until there's more demand and X99 is after all a very slim platform. It's a spin-off of Intel's Xeons, it would never exist on its own. And the competition in that segment is a flat out zero, they don't have to compete with anyone but themselves.
Except those Xeons will be be using RDIMMs - a market with much more profit margin than UDIMM. Manufacturers will be more inclined to use their DDR4 chips in RDIM modules than in UDIMM. Until there is excess capacity and/or greater growth in the UDIMM market to substanciate a change to UDIMM (next-gen mainstream Intel chipsets), expect most manufacturers to support RDIMM over UDIMM.
As long as DDR4 is only used in premium systems it's going to have a premium price. Parity won't happen until you can find it in a $500 best buy special. That in turn will only happen when Intel starts selling mass market DDR4 only CPUs. Mainstream SkyLake will have both DDR3 and DDR4 controllers; so the soonest we could see it happen would be with CannonLake next year. However I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up waiting until the new socket the year after.
DDR4 is inflated? You can buy 16 gigs of DDR4-3000 for $200 right now. Meanwhile 8 gigs of DDR3-3000 would run you over $250 alone. People really need to stop saying DDR4 is inflated when prices have fallen by 50-60% since x99 launched. Once Skylake comes out prepare to see prices drop even more.
Actually on this very website they show that ddr3 2400 Cas 10 is actually the fastest DDR3 speed. The increased Cas of faster DDR3 speeds actually makes it perform slightly lower. So people buying anything over DDR3 2400 Cas 10 are completely wasting money.
You can't compare DDR3-3000 MHz to DDR4-3000 MHz, their 2 different types of ram and the DDR4 would be running at higher latencies. Also having extreme high RAM-frequencies on DDR3 is mostly good for setting benchmark records or in server environments, but as a normal user, you would hardly notice any difference. Only scenario that benefits from higher RAM-speeds is, if you use an AMD-APU and are not running a dedicated graphics-card, then the graphics will benefit from the higher RAM-speeds
Very true, they have dropped nearly in half since I built my X99 system in November. The biggest difference is that X99 is being sold in quad-channel kits for the most part vs. typical LGA1150 systems which are just dual-channel so you are basically dealing in 2x denominations. Also, the minimum DIMM size has gone from 2-8GB to 4-8GB and now 16GB. So it quickly gets into a powers of 2 situation for most people but the advantages are worth it imo.
How is DDR4 prices being inflated? It's the same thing that happened when DDR2->DDR3 transition. There are several reasons for DDR4 being expensive, it's not in mainstream systems so they don't make a ton, the other reason is recouping R&D costs. There is always a price premium and then eventually it gets to parity. There was limited supply at launch for fast parts but 2133MHz was available for months before launch.
I suspect that this has taken so long to arrive since now, in some cases, you don't need expensive server CPUs, mother boards and RAM. Not unlike the ISP that isn't selling you upload speeds that will enable you to open your own web server at home.
This is becoming harder to achieve as games get larger and larger. GTA5 for example weighs in at a whopping 65GB and now with graphics VRAM amounts increasing Windows wants 2x your VRAM amount as a swap buffer. With Titan X and 32GB RAM for example Windows makes 28GB available to the graphics card. No complaints really because games run silky smooth on my rig.
I do quite a bit of stuff and I have never found myself needing more than 16GB of ram. With quad channel memory and a 4x8GB kit there's no way I would need more than 32GB. For a home PC you gotta be doing some crazy stuff to need 16GB modules.
It should just work. Those max memory specs usually just multiply the largest available RAM stick by the number of RAM slots, rather than specify what the controller architecture can actually do with hypothetical future RAM sticks.
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LukaP - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Could we, please, stop inflating the DDR4 prices? First it was the fact intel released x99 early and there was limited supply. then it was the new memory tech, What is it now, after half a year, and with 2 consumer platforms being on the way to use DDR4?Kjella - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Because they can. The market that is unhappy with 8GB/stick of 2GHz+ DDR3 is really, really slim. The only reason people are buying DDR4 is because they have to in order to run the X99 platform, they don't have a choice. There's no second hand market of people looking to double up either, basically they can sit back and watch the market sell their product.I also think they seriously burned themselves on building too much capacity ~2 years ago leading to price dumping of DDR3, this time I expect them to err on the side of caution. They won't build more capacity until there's more demand and X99 is after all a very slim platform. It's a spin-off of Intel's Xeons, it would never exist on its own. And the competition in that segment is a flat out zero, they don't have to compete with anyone but themselves.
extide - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Don't forget about the ACTUAL Xeon's using DDR4... I am sure that is a pretty decent size market, much bigger than the X99 users, at least.Zok - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Except those Xeons will be be using RDIMMs - a market with much more profit margin than UDIMM. Manufacturers will be more inclined to use their DDR4 chips in RDIM modules than in UDIMM. Until there is excess capacity and/or greater growth in the UDIMM market to substanciate a change to UDIMM (next-gen mainstream Intel chipsets), expect most manufacturers to support RDIMM over UDIMM.DanNeely - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
As long as DDR4 is only used in premium systems it's going to have a premium price. Parity won't happen until you can find it in a $500 best buy special. That in turn will only happen when Intel starts selling mass market DDR4 only CPUs. Mainstream SkyLake will have both DDR3 and DDR4 controllers; so the soonest we could see it happen would be with CannonLake next year. However I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up waiting until the new socket the year after.MapRef41N93W - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
DDR4 is inflated? You can buy 16 gigs of DDR4-3000 for $200 right now. Meanwhile 8 gigs of DDR3-3000 would run you over $250 alone. People really need to stop saying DDR4 is inflated when prices have fallen by 50-60% since x99 launched. Once Skylake comes out prepare to see prices drop even more.yuhong - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
Except that most people don't buy the highest speeds.mlkmade - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
so they'd by the even cheaper lower speeds.great counter-point
smilingcrow - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
The cheapest DDR3 is much cheaper than the cheapest DDR4; that's the simple point.Hardly anyone cares about 3,000MHz RAM and rightly so.
willis936 - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
The people buying quad channel systems do and rightly so.smilingcrow - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
And they are the 1%.Laststop311 - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
Actually on this very website they show that ddr3 2400 Cas 10 is actually the fastest DDR3 speed. The increased Cas of faster DDR3 speeds actually makes it perform slightly lower. So people buying anything over DDR3 2400 Cas 10 are completely wasting money.Sn3akr - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
You can't compare DDR3-3000 MHz to DDR4-3000 MHz, their 2 different types of ram and the DDR4 would be running at higher latencies. Also having extreme high RAM-frequencies on DDR3 is mostly good for setting benchmark records or in server environments, but as a normal user, you would hardly notice any difference. Only scenario that benefits from higher RAM-speeds is, if you use an AMD-APU and are not running a dedicated graphics-card, then the graphics will benefit from the higher RAM-speedschizow - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
Very true, they have dropped nearly in half since I built my X99 system in November. The biggest difference is that X99 is being sold in quad-channel kits for the most part vs. typical LGA1150 systems which are just dual-channel so you are basically dealing in 2x denominations. Also, the minimum DIMM size has gone from 2-8GB to 4-8GB and now 16GB. So it quickly gets into a powers of 2 situation for most people but the advantages are worth it imo.Samus - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
DDR4 adoption isn't as compelling as DDR3 was, and even DDR3 wasn't mainstream for a year. X58 owned the DDR3 market for all of 2008 and most of 2009.Cpt.Planet - Sunday, April 26, 2015 - link
How is DDR4 prices being inflated? It's the same thing that happened when DDR2->DDR3 transition. There are several reasons for DDR4 being expensive, it's not in mainstream systems so they don't make a ton, the other reason is recouping R&D costs. There is always a price premium and then eventually it gets to parity. There was limited supply at launch for fast parts but 2133MHz was available for months before launch.ytoledano - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Finally!I suspect that this has taken so long to arrive since now, in some cases, you don't need expensive server CPUs, mother boards and RAM. Not unlike the ISP that isn't selling you upload speeds that will enable you to open your own web server at home.
Ashinjuka - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Great! Now CHKDSK /r will run even faster!bznotins - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Oh, the RAMDrive possibilities...chizow - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
This is becoming harder to achieve as games get larger and larger. GTA5 for example weighs in at a whopping 65GB and now with graphics VRAM amounts increasing Windows wants 2x your VRAM amount as a swap buffer. With Titan X and 32GB RAM for example Windows makes 28GB available to the graphics card. No complaints really because games run silky smooth on my rig.Laststop311 - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
I do quite a bit of stuff and I have never found myself needing more than 16GB of ram. With quad channel memory and a 4x8GB kit there's no way I would need more than 32GB. For a home PC you gotta be doing some crazy stuff to need 16GB modules.Pork@III - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
WoW Nvidia make Volta with up to 64GB vRAM. PC with 16-32GB RAM and Volta graphic with 64GB vRAM like crazy frog. :DDG4RiA - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
Can the i7-5960X use 128GB ? Intel website said it has a max memory support of 64GB. Or will it just work with motherboard BIOS update ?Pork@III - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
Damn this is true. Intel cut deep into memory controller, for non professional use. :Dsmilingcrow - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
Which makes this RAM without a home right now seemingly!Per Hansson - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
That's an interesting catch!But then again the pictured system shows a i7-5820k utilizing 127GB of memory so...???
A little feedback please! :)
Morawka - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
just needs a bios update. he's even running it on a 20 lane 5820k in the screenshotjabber - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
Buy a set between two friends and split it.Gigaplex - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
It should just work. Those max memory specs usually just multiply the largest available RAM stick by the number of RAM slots, rather than specify what the controller architecture can actually do with hypothetical future RAM sticks.coburn_c - Monday, April 27, 2015 - link
DDR4 would have been a great time to switch us over to ECC memory... sigh.grant3 - Monday, April 27, 2015 - link
probably you could switch over any time you want. if you want to pay the price!BtDaG - Monday, April 27, 2015 - link
What is that Memtest software?thomasxstewart - Friday, May 1, 2015 - link
When Top end processors are mention as costly,too, might be correct term.Well, lots 'o files for Mad Movie Genee'.drashek