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0 pointsverall5y ago0 comments

This is a bad comparison. DRAM margins are razor thin and unlike transistors, DRAM has not gotten much smaller, which is the main cost savings gained from process improvements.

Instead, server and accelerator vendors want ever faster and higher performance DRAM, and so these performance gains trickle down to consumers, but nothing is driving price down.

People on here literally think Moore's is a natural law and if computer hardware isn't getting 15% cheaper every year there must be funny business involved...

0 comments

Taek5y ago

Hasn't the DRAM industry gotten in trouble with regulators multiple times for fixing prices?

lostlogin5y ago

They have. Giving the industry the benefit of the doubt after decades of price fixing is generous at best.

“To date, five manufacturers have pleaded guilty to their involvement in an international price-fixing conspiracy including Hynix, Infineon, Micron Technology, Samsung, and Elpida.”

It’s claimed to be a very high margin industry and supply is artificially constrained to maintain that margin.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/283081-dram-manufactur...

nn35y ago

I call it the economic fallacy. It's very common, especially on discussion forums like this.

Every problem is only related to how much competition there is, but not to how hard the underlying problem is.

It's somewhat related to the "awareness fallacy": The belief that every problem that humanity has can be solved if just everyone is aware and willing to act.

Aerroon5y ago

>DRAM margins are razor thin and unlike transistors, DRAM has not gotten much smaller, which is the main cost savings gained from process improvements.

Should we then expect SRAM to eventually be cheaper than DRAM?

sroussey5y ago

You might see larger in-processor or on-module memory (in a chiplet design). Lots of factors to deal with.

Have those numbers been growing? Don’t have data on hand myself.

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