Finally, some good news on the hardware front, and more specifically on RAM. TrendForce tells us that the price of RAM is set to fall in the first part of 2025. We can expect prices to fall by between 8% and 13% in the first quarter.
RAM: an 8-13% price cut coming soon!
According to this new TrendForce report, memory prices are set to fall at the start of the year, and that’s excellent news for consumers. More specifically, when it comes to PC memory, it’s DDR4 that will see the biggest drop, with prices expected to fall by 10-15%. This applies to both the traditional and server sectors. As for DDR5, more moderate drops are to be expected. We’re talking about 5 to 10% in the PC sector, compared with 3 to 8% in servers. It is worth noting that, in the face of the final quarter of 2024, the declines are becoming more pronounced.
As for VRAM, which is used in graphics cards, while prices were stable in the previous quarter, they will fall this quarter. GDDR6, for example, is expected to show an interesting fall of between 8% and 13%. This could have a positive impact on the price of future AMD cards. AMD’s future RX 9000s are expected to be equipped with this type of chip. However, prices for GDDR7 are expected to remain relatively stable, with a small drop of 0-5%. This is not surprising in itself, since this type of memory is brand new, but production capacities are gradually increasing.
All in all, prices are likely to fall further this quarter, from 3% to 8% in Q4 2024 to 8% to 13%. Even the HBM memory will be affected: 0 to 5% compared with an increase of up to 8% at the end of last year.
The reason why RAM prices are falling is quite simply that there is too much inventory. Clearly, demand is rather weak, not to mention Chinese chip production, which still seems to be buoyant.