yay, more expensive memory...

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100115PR204.html

So much for those $5 sticks anymore...

 

Awesome... Computer parts have been far too cheap over the past few years, severely depriving the R&D industry of desperately needed funds to create the better products of the future.

 

... are you serious?

 

i know you arent serious

 

5$ sticks of memory, i've never heard of something like that...

 

Yes I am serious. Don't you think the engineers and the investors who bring you the wonderful laptops you guys have today deserve a raise for their jobs well done?

Don't you want even better products in the future? Lighter, more durable, longer battery life?

That doesn't happen when the prices are so low that computer firms can barely afford to re-invest in R&D, or concentrate the R&D so much that its all done by one or two firms.

Just think of the awesome technologies that need more development, that can be accelerated if prices were to start to rise. OLED displays for instance.

 

The opposite is true. R&D is intense when prices are competitively low as rival companies seek an advantage over each other. This is how capitalism works; companies direct their efforts principally according to the consumer's willingness to pay money for a certain good or service.

Paying extra money would just be used to line the pockets of senior staff and executives. Besides, only saps opt to pay extra just for the heck of it.

 

Methinks someone needs a microeconomics class.

Granted * this* would max out my memory capacity, it's also about the same amount I paid for the whole machine... blu-ray and all!

 

I agree, in theory according to microeconomics in a competitive market all goods and services will be produced at cost. cost = inputs+RandD+labour etc. in a fully competitive market there should be little to no profit.

 

...but the 'profit' is what makes investors, the people who own the companies that provide you the technology goods and services you want, able to afford to re-invest.

A company that produces no profit eventually loses its investors, and ceases to exist. If the entire industry produces no profit, then the entire industry eventually becomes de-capitalized, R&D stops, and consumers suffer from lack of innovation.

Back to the original topic, memory fabs are multi-billion dollar factories, which have a shelf life of only 5-10 years. They take a few years to build as well. If RAM prices remained artificially cheap last year, and this year -- the next gen of fabs wouldn't receive funding, and there would be future shortages.

 

OK, here are the consequences of opting to pay extra money for "R&D":

- the money doesn't always go to R&D; companies are in business to make money, not to advance technology. The latter is just a consequence of staying competitive.

- competition decreases when consumers are willing to pay more because they're willing to pay anything for competing products, thus voiding a driving factor behind competition; this results in industry monopoly or stagnation.

 

Okay. So CPU prices have fallen through the floor over the past decade or two. How many CPU companies do we have today? 2?

How many 2 decades ago? Let's see. Intel (x86, i960), Digital (Alpha), IBM (Power/PowerPC), Motorola (68k series), Sun (SPARC), MIPS (R4000), etc. Not even counting the 'embedded' stuff, of course.

That's what low prices have done -- consolidated the industry. Today's contemporary Intel (and AMD) CPU's are a melange of best practices developed on the various platforms I referenced above. But since Intel is the only company that can make money on CPU's -- we're almost completely reliant upon Intel for future developments. The low prices have ruined the competitive atmosphere in the industry, and concentrated nearly all high end CPU R&D efforts into the hands of Intel because they're the only company that has the cash to actually afford such R&D.

If prices were higher, then other manufacturers (ie: AMD) could sell their CPU's for more, and could afford more R&D. Again, ultimately delivering a benefit to the consumer.

 

Low prices generally aren't the main reason for consolidation; consolidation happens when companies overextend their resources and become uncompetitive. Low prices are certainly a part of that, but generally, poor business practices, management, and investment strategies form a much greater portion of the problem. Example: Most people seem to agree that one of the main reasons AMD was struggling was all the money they had to outlay to acquire ATI. This has nothing to do with the prices that AMD put on their CPUs, and everything to do with business management/investment (they invested in buying ATI so they could start putting out integrated CPU/GPU chipsets).

 

Uh, sorry, no. A component of cost for every company is the cost of capital. No profit equals no capital equals no company.

In a fully competitive market prices reduce until the company generates the minimum level of profit that investors demand in return for their investment, which varies with the industry and company. Otherwise capital flees a company. If competitor A generates a 15% ROE and competitor B generates a 10% ROE, capital will flee company B, and without capital the inability to do R&D and expand operations means death in any tech industry. Just ask AMD.

If a whole industry operates at cost and has no profit, capital flees the entire industry. The industry atrophies and then dies, or companies disappear until there is enough profit to support the few survivors. This is the airline industry (taking 30 years to make the shift).

 

Yup. And even with computers, the market itself isn't expanding at anywhere near the former rate, so the ability to attract investment based on the promise of future demand growth is diminishing. Investors willing to accept sub-par ROI in exchange for future growth, is one of the reasons why computers have remained very cheap over the past decade (in addition to integration trends which have largely run their course).

Also, the trend of outsourcing is largely complete for computer engineering, and computer production. $4000 laptops became $800 laptops because the workers who made them were paid 1/5th as much (Americans fired....Chinese, Indians hired). As salaries of those Chinese and Indian engineers rise equalize with those of American engineers and factory workers, costs will rise significantly.

Airline industry is facing the same issues. The airplanes that make up much of their fleets were bought cheap 20-30 years ago, in a falling interest rate environment. The replacements to those worn out planes cost 2-3X as much, in a rising interest rate environment. And replacement equity and debt capital is also very expensive as well because most airline investors over the past few decades haven't made very much $$$.

 

What is the difference between THIS memory and THIS memory aside from the price? Will I notice a difference in benchmarks?

 

You will notice no difference in performance from either kit.

 

agreed... wow i had almost had a heart attack when i saw the price difference... but seriosuly i doubt there is much difference in both types...

 

I don't think so.

The reason the Corsair is so much more expensive is because it is generally reputed to be more reliable, but I think that G.Skill is pretty good too.

 

The G.Skill use the Hynix chips..............

 

I see they dropped the price of the Corsair 8gb kit by $300 since yesterday. It's been over $700 for about the last year.