what happened?

Is it me or notebook ram doubled in price. I searched on newegg and they seem way higher.

 

Yes. Typical of what happens when ram prices bottom out and new technology surfaces. DDR2 production is down, DDR3 is up, so DDR2 prices go up and DDR3 comes down.

 

but that makes absolutely no sense, since the technology is old is should go down in price, btw it should go up half its price, in june i could of got a 2 2gb sticks for 44$ , no its around 80+

 

I believe this was the same one going for 39.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227251

 

Pricing isn't based on whether it's old or not but rather supply and demand. While the demand it low, it's still higher than the supply. It has happened through out history of technology, when DDR2 came in and phased out DDR, DDR prices went up too. But also with the economy, memory manufactures were losing money before, so now they have increased prices and they won't lower to what they were before.

 

Your first mistake was assuming that prices in our economical system had to "make sense"

Ok but seriously, it's not a question of how old it is but of supply and demand. Think of it like antiquities; they're old, outdated and serve little purpose when compared to newer technology, but if a demand is there and they're rare, then their price will increase. Take old disc players or phonographs; they're outdated and very much less useful than modern music players but some people still want them so they still hold value.

This is of course a very crude model, but it still shows the basics of supply & demand. There are more factors to consider for technology but the basic model is there.

 

The reason is because when manufacturers switch their processes over to DDR3, DDR2 production becomes less of a priority so it costs them more to produce fewer and fewer amounts of older technology.

 

The higher prices aren't solely due to a transition to DDR3. I think sgogeta4 is right with memory manufacturers previously selling for a loss during a weakened economy, because DDR3 prices are now up as well. In the first quarter of this year, a Crucial 2GB DDR3 PC3-8500 CL7 SODIMM was as low as $28 on Newegg and the same module is now over $50. You'd be lucky to find that size and speed memory under any brand name for $40 now. Meanwhile, the same Crucial Ballistix 2x2GB DDR3 PC3-10600 desktop kit I was watching for a future desktop build cost as little as $70 half a year ago and is now over $100.

I picked up 2x2GB DDR3 PC3-8500 CL7 SODIMM modules last week for $25 apiece brand new with free shipping. It was a steal and extremely likely a pricing error. I don't really need 4GB on my laptop now, but for $50, I didn't care. The new memory is in my laptop now and you probably won't be seeing those prices on memory again for a very long time.

 

Memory prices were very high a year and a half to two years ago. Manufacturers were pumping them out like crazy, at a rate higher than the demand even at the time. Then with the economic slowdown the bottom dropped out of the memory market, so memory was given away at fire sale prices for a long time. That glut is gone and memory manufacturers are making a lot less than they used to and are back to selling the memory at a higher cost.

As for ditching DDR2 for DDR3, yes, that is an issue. However, silicon used for DDR2 can be used for DDR3, so lithography mills don't really care about any switch. Also the modules themselves are very similar. Really there is little hiccup switching from DDR2 to DDR3 from the manufacturing side of things, unlike the huge upset on the consumer side of things.