DDR3 will soon cost the same as DDR2

Under $US2 per GB - oh please let this be true!

DDR3 prices are expected to fall to about the same level as DDR2 memory soon, according to industry chatter picked up in Taiwan by Dodgytimes.

At the moment a gigabyte of DDR3 will set you back $1.90 and is decreasing while spot pricing of DDR2 is about $1.60 and that's increasing.

The cross over between prices in the two segments is expected at somewhere below $2, sources think.

Once the prices of the two types of memory chips match, that is expected to see the end of DDR2 price increases. At that point the memory suppliers are likely to shift over to DDR3 in order to survive.

Currently Taiwan DRAM makers produce more DDR2 chips than DDR3. In the short term they are expected to be laughing but might suffer longer term once the crossover in chip prices happens.

The only reason the crossover in prices did not occur earlier was because there was a shortage of DDR3 chips earlier in the third quarter. The shortage prevented wide-scale adoption of DDR3 and boosted prices. That forced some PC makers to use DDR2, which supported its value for a while.

However now that the major chip vendors are ramping up their DDR3 output to meet growing demand, DDR3 chip and module prices are expected to become more reasonable.

According to analysts inSpectrum, DDR3 output will approach that of DDR2 sometime in the fourth quarter.