In the past year, memory prices continued to rise, 8GB DDR4 memory was approaching 1,000 yuan, and DDR3 memory was also boosted. Although memory prices have fallen this year, they are still far above the level of the same period last year.
As we all know, computers are made up of many hardware components, and each component will have alternatives. For example, if the price of graphics cards goes up, we can buy a second-hand graphics card. It's too expensive. We can also use the CPU's core display; The price, we can use the mechanical hard drive first, wait until the price reduction and then buy; CPU not to mention, buy old models or overclocking can fight for several years.
There is no substitute for memory alone. Whether it is DDR3 or DDR4, there is no memory. Machines with small memory will have special cards. This causes many friends to simply give up the installed capacity. This hurts the DIY industry very much.
Memory price increase
We know that there is a reason for every memory price increase. Basically, they are all 'natural disasters'. Of course, the truth behind this 'natural disaster' is unknown to us. Before the memory price hike was caused by flooding at the factory, and later it was a fire. Recently, Micron once again revealed that the plant has failed. In short, various kinds of dilemma led to memory prices.
However, this memory price hike lasted for a year and it was not a simple “natural disaster.” The author thinks: The current rise in memory prices is inseparable from the fieryness of the server market and the smart phone market. 2017 Big Data , Cloud computing, The concept of artificial intelligence is very hot, these products all need memory, so the balance of the memory industry is broken, and price increases become inevitable.
In addition, the hot mining industry also has a certain role in promoting memory prices. Although the memory requirements of mining machines are not high, the overall market volume is huge. Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix have turned to server vendors and large numbers of customers. Mining machine customers, making the DIY market a serious shortage of DRAM particles.
Although major manufacturers now plan to build factories to increase production, it is far from being able to hydrolyze the recent thirst. This situation has caused DRAM memory to be out of stock in 2017. Therefore, memory prices will remain high. There is still a negative impact on the memory market. Yes, the PCB board and assembly costs for memory production are all increasing in 2017, causing the overall cost of the memory to keep rising. As a result, the increase in retail price will increase.
Will memory be lowered in 2018?
For everyone to eat a reassuring pill, memory will be reduced this year, but not now, time is expected in the second half or year-end. The memory price market should be analyzed from two aspects:
For: DRAM production increase orderly in progress
The most expensive part of the memory is DRAM, and there are only three global DDR4 DRAM manufacturers, Samsung, Micron, Hynix. Let's take a look at the situation of three flash memory manufacturers.
Currently, Samsung’s world’s largest flash memory plant in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, has officially started, and flash memory production is steadily increasing. Samsung also invested in an upgraded flash memory plant in Xi’an, China, but it will not start production in three years. Micron’s Micron is strengthening its plant in Taiwan. The investment is expected to be 2 billion U.S. dollars a year, and the production process will be increased from 25nm to 1xnm, so the production efficiency will increase a lot.
Hynix also launched a new investment plan in China. In Wuxi, China, Hynix's ultra-flash memory plant will increase throughput by a factor of 2. It will provide 15% of global memory capacity!
Need: Smart hands opportunity cold
In terms of smartphones, the market did not meet expectations (12.71 million domestic mobile phone sales in December 2017, down 32.5% year-on-year, and total sales from January to December were 491 million, down 12.3% year-on-year. ), so the overall smartphone memory was It does not continue to expand. Although the new machine has continued in the near future, it can be seen that high-end mobile phones still have 4GB and 6GB memory, and 8GB of memory is rarely seen.
Therefore, the increase in memory prices for smart phones seems untenable. In terms of mining machinery, the recent virtual currency has been plunged by policy, and mining costs have remained high. Therefore, sales of miner have basically been shelved, and the memory supply and demand are not balanced. The relationship will be broken. To sum up, the memory price reduction is stagnant.
DDR5 memory and proud contender!
Memory prices, we use small memory and other memory prices are not desirable. Because memory price reduction is a long-term slow process, you do not know when the memory price is the lowest point, when is the high. In order to save two or three hundred dollars, so that The performance of other hardware has been suppressed for a long time.
In addition, players have to face the point is, wait until the DDR4 memory prices, DDR5 memory will also be shipped. Many sources show that this year Q2 quarter DDR5 memory has been a kind of chip, will see the official version of DDR5 about June , It is expected that there will be a small amount of listing in early 2019.
The memory standards organization JEDEC had previously stated that the bandwidth and density of the next-generation DDR memory are now double that! It will also provide more powerful channel efficiency. Currently, the highest default frequency of DDR4 memory can reach 2400MHz, which means that we will Will see the emergence of DDR5-4800 memory.
Intel's ninth or tenth generation processors, Ryzen3 or 4th generation processors are likely to only support DDR5 memory, which will create a new wave of hardware upgrades. (Remember the last hardware upgrade was driven by USB3.1 hardware enhancements. Storage hardware upgrades)
On the other hand, Intel's black technology Ao Teng memory can not be ignored, although the current Ao Teng memory contrast gap is still relatively large, but believe that in the rich and powerful Intel R & D, memory hard disk fit is only a matter of time. You arduously waiting for the DDR4 Memory, may soon be eliminated.
