Should we take our PCs down the doctors, maybe get them on some anti depressants On a more serious note, do those prices seem really high compared to DDR3 ? I'm not up on current DDR3 prices but i can't see DDR4 shifting in large volumes if those are the kind of prices we are going to have to pay.
adata have announced 8gb kits - will be interesting as the rumour mill says they will be similar priced to cyrrent DDR3
To quote a favorite cartoon character of mine: "there's something awfully screwy going on around here" Looking at the Crucial modules and their speeds and timings, I see the 2133 and 2400 modules are rated for 16-16-16 latencies, but the 2666 modules for 15-15-15. Also, the 3000 packages are rated for "15-15-15 TBC", where "TBC" I assume means "to be confirmed". So how do they up the frequency and tighten the timings at the same time?
Not yet and no CPUs supporting it either. Initially only the upcoming Haswell-E will support DDR4, both Haswell-E and Mainboards for it will be in stores sometime later this year. Obviously with Haswell-E being expensive and no new Intel mainstream CPU due until 2015 it will be 2015 before the majority of PC Users will have to think about the existence of DDR4.
Yep it all depends on the silicone, hence the binning process. Older DDR3 (like the stuff I currently have installed) can run crazy tight timings, eg 7-7-7-20 at 2000MHz with only 1.65v, but it's really rare stuff and was binned for enthusiast level kits... and with an appropriately hefty price premium, of course. The ICs, made by Elpida and branded "Hyper", respond well to increases in voltage and can do 2400MHz CAS 8 (iirc) as long as they are kept cool. Some silicon just does not respond as well to voltage; no matter how high you ramp it up or how cool the component runs (think liquid nitrogen), it'll reach a bandwidth ceiling and that's that. I think 3000MHz @ CAS 15 belies the capability of the modules, because the memory bandwidth depends on the system that the memory is installed in. New architecture and new memory technology... the bandwidth will be through the roof, just like SB and IB went back to dual channel and trumped the triple channel bandwidth of X58 even with higher latencies.
New generation of RAM is always more expensive than the old, established tech. And those prices are actually what i personally expected, about 40% more expensive than the same DDR3 kits. Now only we need to wait a month and some for X99 boards and new Haswell-E CPU.
Bathtub curve, innit? There's no demand for DDR4 now 'cos nothing supports it, so they're making small volumes for early adopters - and if you're one of those early adopters you pay the price for your eagerness, same as always. Once more platforms support it, demand will be higher, they'll produce more, cost per unit will go down and it will become steadily cheaper. This is how pricing has always worked. When DDR3 launched in 2007, it was more expensive than DDR2; now it's cheaper, as the other end of the bathtub curve kicks in: obsolescence. Nobody's buying DDR2 because everything has moved to DDR3, so manufacturers are producing smaller volumes for legacy users who pay the price for their outdated equipment. Thus it has always been. As time goes on, DDR2 will only rise in price before disappearing from the market altogether except, perhaps, in specialised industrial markets - just like its predecessors. In short: it's no surprise that the very first DDR4 modules on the market are expensive, because so were the very first DDR3 modules; and DDR2 modules; and DDR modules; and EDO SIMMs; and 72-pin SIMMS; and 36-pin SIMMS; and 4664 DIP packages; and so forth. EDIT: Found this pre-launch piece from Anandtech which predicted that 2GB of DDR3 would launch at $480, compared to $150 for 2GB of DDR2 of roughly equivalent performance at the time of writing. That should help put things into perspective!
Think its as you say mate, the bandwidth on this stuff will show the performance of the new gen RAM against that of DDR3. Guess it'll be a while until prices drop, or at least until something that can utilize it is released.
I guess so, i was just hoping it wouldn't be such a steep curve. I remember reading an article ages ago from IHS iSuppli saying DDR4 would command around a 30% premium at launch, dropping to around 10% after a year or two, that Mike Howard guy couldn't have gotten it more wrong The Anandtech article does put things in perspective, maybe i need those anti depressants to help change my perspective EDIT: Going on rumors X99 “Wellsburg” and Haswell-E are due out in September, but as usual with rumors who really knows, but it would tie in with the one month waiting time for the DDR4 launch pre-orders.
wow i hope these prices drop a bit in the future x.x i'm looking forward to seeing how an apu made to support ddr4 will perform, but that is definitely not going to make it on my budget wish list if the ram required cost me the same as a mid-high range gpu at a minimum lol
I tend to buy stuff just as it's going out. My current CPU is an i7 950, which I got for a song just before it was replaced. For work, there's always room for more performance, but for games, with this now-ancient GTX 460, I rarely find anything I can't run at max chat. I understand that I could, by spending about £300, get effectively the same CPU and graphics performance I have now at half the power consumption - that's all. Getting more than I bought back then would require going to frighteningly expensive hex core chips or xeons. i7 980s are expensive now and they were expensive then. So who cares if there's something 10% better out. None of us need it. Which is actually quite disturbing, because this is what it felt like being an Amiga user in about 1994. P